Taking the strain out of steel certification

Whatever filing system you have, finding the right paperwork takes time

Are you fed up of rifling through filing cabinets to find the right test certificates for each batch of steel you’re sending out? How much time is spent photocopying all the relevant certificates and stapling them together? Have you ever thought that there must be a simpler way to deal with steel certification? If so, you’ll be very glad to hear that with the arrival of our new cloud merchant business management system UT400, there is.

Every batch of steel is unique, so the paperwork gets complicated

Steel certification, for those of you who might not know, is notoriously complex. With certification requirements varying depending on intended usage and specific product types to ensure adequate levels of stability, mechanical resistance, serviceability and durability, it’s no surprise that providing the relevant paperwork – which must be provided for every batch of steel produced – is something of a headache.

Of course, this rigorous quality assurance is a necessary part of the steel supply chain, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy ride. Everyone involved in the construction process from suppliers to engineers needs to be confident in the materials they are using for any given project. And managing the amount of paperwork involved is a time-consuming and laborious task.

We’ve listened to our steel customers telling us how the usual process works – filing certification documents, then searching through the filing cabinet for the relevant documentations each time a dispatch is required, photocopying the relevant ones per batch, stapling it all together and attaching it to the delivery in question (which of course will sometimes comprise multiple stock types each requiring multiple certifications). As you can imagine, this not only takes a lot of time and physical resource, but is also open to human error, omission and even loss in transit, rendering the products unusable if the correct certification cannot be provided. We’ve listened, and we’ve created something to help.

Enter UT400 and its test certificate scanning feature.

Do away with paperwork and stapling and let digital techology help

The idea is simple: just scan the original documents when they’re first received or created, and the Heat / Cast numbers are read using OCR. Then each time any steel is dispatched from a Lot / Batch, the associated test certificates are attached to the dispatch note automatically, saving a lot of manual labour, complication and materials. It’s has huge time saving benefits and reduces the risk of error, as well as the amount of paper required.  And of course it works just as well for any other product (timber merchants, take note!) which requires certification – thankfully most aren’t as complex as steel but as businesses move to a more flexible, digitised way of working, every time saving, automated feature helps (as the saying almost goes).

Of course, as an end-to-end business management system, there are masses of other features which will help to simplify and improve processes and help your business to run more efficiently (and profitably). Take a look at the system in more depth here. And remember, we offer a totally free, no risk opportunity to demo the system in the comfort of your own office (or armchair if you prefer – since it works from any smart device) and tiered pricing that makes it feasible to unlock the potential of your entire workforce – not just the management team.

If you’d like to talk to us about our software and how it could benefit your business, please do get in touch. You can either call us on 01202 861606 or just email www.ten-25.co.uk. We’d love to have a chat about how we can help.