Eaton Steel Boosts Profits by Millions with Tempo Technologies' Inventory Management Solution
The Problem
Eaton Steel is one of America’s largest manufacturers and distributors of cold drawn and hot rolled SBQ steel bars, operating one of the largest cold drawn steel bar mills in the United States. Managing thousands of SKUs and keeping track of inventory was an extremely complicated process, especially when Eaton Steel needed to process complete heats.
Eaton Steel processed hundreds of thousands of tons of steel per year, but were losing or unable to locate coils and bundles of steel in their 10 acre yard.
Steel was either lost, or it created straggler bundles and coils because Eaton Steel could not run steel in the mill in complete heats. Not being able to find items in the yard, they would have to shut down production lines, costing them 1,000’s of dollars / hour. Several months later, when they actually found straggler coils, it was too late. They often needed to change over a production line (at a cost of $10k/hr) to finish a job. At this point, the customer no longer wanted the product, so Eaton Steel would have to find a way to sell the once-lost steel in small quantities.
This problem cost Eaton Steel over $2M per year in lost steel, inefficiencies and downtime.
The Solution
Eaton Steel chose Tempo Technology’s RFID tags, software, and mobile tracking equipment from Zebra to locate and continuously cycle count steel in the yard.
The Result
Eaton Steel has not lost a single coil in the yard in over three years. They have not had to shut down a line, or run straggler or ghost steel bundles or coils. Not once.
As a result, they then began using the RFID tags and mobile tracking equipment for finished goods. They used the package in their heat treat plant and cutting plant locations to track and cycle count raw material across all finished goods. To put this in perspective, Eaton Steel manages hundreds of thousands of tons of finished inventory across their facilities.
And still, they have not lost any raw material or a single finished item in three years, across four different locations.
Eaton Steel also uses Tempo Tech to verify shipments of finished goods to customers, ensuring the correct items are loaded onto trucks. This has eliminated both over-shipping and under-shipping issues. In their finished goods area, which contains tens of thousands of bundles, they have achieved perfect accuracy. Not a single item has been missed during staging or shipping, and they have avoided all shipment delays due to misplaced finished goods.
- Savings in Yard: ROI on the technology per year ranges between 12x and 15x, in the multi-million range.
Benefit from More Finished - Goods Sales: By always having finished goods available for sale, they achieve a 40x ROI each year.
- ReSavings over three years: venue Benefit: Eaton Steel has increased annual revenue by $3-4 million solely through improved ability to locate and ship finished goods quickly.
- Lost Goods: Eaton Steel went from losing about $2M / year to losing nothing.
- No More Production Downtime: Previously, Eaton Steel had to shut down each facility for three days annually to conduct inventory counts. This disruptive practice is no longer necessary.
Customer Testimonial
“I’m responsible for all inventory management and production planning in all four Eaton Steel facilities. I’m a big believer in Tempo Tech and couldn’t be more satisfied. The inventory and asset tracking has made my life so much easier and saved us a fortune. The Tempo Team has been completely knowledgeable and responsive.”