How to Order Metal Fabrication

by Marcy Marro | June 1, 2021 12:00 am

The sheet metal industry has been experiencing incredible volatility over the past 12 supply months. What trends are you seeing in how your customers take orders day in and day out?

Right now, it seems everyone I talk to is going 110 miles an hour just trying to keep up with supply, demand and getting back work from last year. One of the big questions we see fabricator customers have is, “How can I be more efficient with how my customers order?” The issue is customers don’t just order in one way. They may call, email, text, fax or walk in. They may also submit the order drawn up on a napkin they found at the job site. This can lead to not always getting all the information fabricators need or causing miscommunication. For years, the focus was on machine efficiency, and it still is, but we are starting to see a need for streamlining order intake and production management. The answer is software.

What types of software are out there for the metal industry?

We know installers have numerous programs and platforms to help get their takeoffs done and any information that they need, but the fabrication side of the industry is just now getting into the software side of things. Of course, there are Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, accounting packages and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools that have been around for awhile, but the new wave of software for metal fabricators connects the fabricators directly with their customers and what they need to order. We call our software “nuIT.”

What does nuIT do?

CIDAN Machinery Group purchased a software company at the beginning of 2019 called nuIT. At its core, the nuIT platform is an order processing and production management software designed and built by a shop owner who saw the value in streamlining the order process from customer to fabrication.

In the day and age when companies such as Amazon can give us anything we need by adding it to the cart and checking out, nuIT uses a similar process that’s specific for our industry. A customer can draw custom profiles, order panels and screws, then get pricing for all of that in their cart. When they check out, it sends all the information directly to the fabricator. The customer and fabricator get an auto-generated email with the order details in a PDF, ensuring both sides are receiving the same information. Another great feature from nuIT is the ability to take these customer-drawn profiles and send them directly to CIDAN machinery folders’ slit-to- width, cut-to-length lines.

How is this software received throughout the industry?

We have had really great feedback. From fabricators that have their own install company to job shops fabricating for general contractors, there is something for everyone. The main thing is capturing the right information from the field and getting it to the shop without any miscommunication. Having the email sent out with order details on auto-generated PDFs has been huge for fabricators to help them with communication with their customers. We hear all too often that the customer is always right, so let’s make sure what they order is exactly what gets fabricated!

The platform gets branded specifically to their company, making it unique to each of our customers. For the fabricator, the PDFs can show information like cut lists, total coil used for panels or trim, number of flat sheets used per trim and all pricing for each individual customer’s pricing matrix.

When it comes to the customers ordering, it’s very easy for them to add to the cart and check out because the fabricator sets the customer’s price, sales tax, logistics prices, delivery options and other things all the way down to bend prices and if a hem counts as two bends. The idea is to take the thinking out of the customer’s hands, so they just order what they need. But all the information is set by the fabricator per customer.

What is next for the industry?

To me, the answer is simple—integration and automation. Integration means being able to take nuIT and integrate with QuickBooks, ABIS or a takeoff software. Automation means the connection from nuIT to machines. With our current ability to send profiles to CIDAN folders and nesting information to CIDAN slit lines, we are working hard to expand that automation side of production.

The end game is to be effective and streamlined without creating more work for the fabricator or the customer. The customer draws his trim, picks his panel, gets his price and sends it to the shop. No more writing on napkins, not knowing if it’s a six or an eight, or having to call each other three times.

CIDAN Machinery Group has also released The B.A.S.E., which allows full production automation from a six-decoil line into an automatic knife change slitter that rolls the material onto a conveyer to be picked up by a robot and set into a Thalmann double folder to be bent. This means a customer can order in the field, submit it to the fabricator, and the fabricator presses “start production” in nuIT, and the machine will automatically change the coil to the right material, change the knives to the right place, send that profile directly to the Thalmann and run the order.

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Cody Campbell is a software sales specialist at CIDAN Machinery, Peachtree City, Ga. He can be contacted by email at codyc@cidanmachinery.com[1] or by phone at (770) 692-7230. For more information, go to www.cidanmachinery.com[2].

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/how-to-order-metal-fabrication/

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