Value Added
Morse Steel leverages personal relationships with its customers to provide valuable supply chain services that go far beyond all other metal distribution offerings. We like to get close to our customers to understand them and provide them with what they want to create value or reduce cost for them. If they think it, we will try our best to provide it.
Morse Steel stands out because of our non-traditional services, which include:
Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI): We work with our customers to move raw material and finished parts into their facility so that they have a “mini” Morse Steel warehouse within their own company. By doing so, we are able to better manage and track their usage and consumption of material. VMI gives our customers more time to be able to focus on the core competencies of their own business, while ensuring that they will never run out of the materials that they need. When our customer removes materials from the VMI rack we use technology to track the usage and replenish stock according to the agreed stocking levels. This programs enhances Morse Steel’s knowledge of these customers’ usage and therefore allows us to better manage our own inventory; it is a beneficial service for both Morse Steel and the customer.
Consignment: Often in lock-step with a VMI program, Morse maintains ownership the products on our customer’s floor. We invoice our customers for using the products only after they take them from the rack and consume them in their manufacturing process. Because our customers who do this are not paying for raw materials and parts until the last minute, they are able to free up working capital for their company.
Barcoding: We install and employ this simple technology in our customer’s facilities so we are able to track the usage of their inventory, and trigger replenishment more quickly in VMI and consignment scenarios.
Kits: For many of our customers, we manage a shared Bill of Materials (BOM) for the products that they manufacture. Rather than the customer taking time to order individual parts, we maintain a database of their BOM that allows the customer to simply order in kit units. After receiving the order, we reference the BOM, and this allows us ship a complete, ready-for-manufacturing package with all of the parts specified in the BOM.
Special Packaging: Most of the time when a customer orders a kit, they have special requirements for how they want it to be packaged. Specific packaging can help simplify the customer’s manufacturing process and make for easier transportation through their plant. We can customize kits to have special labels including part numbers, BOM details, drawings; whatever the customer needs.
Special Stocking Programs: If VMI and consignment does not work for customers because of floor space constraints in their facilities, we can still stock kits and finished parts that are ready to ship in our warehouse. If a product is in our warehouse we can prepare parts ahead of time, and ship on a much shorter lead time for critical parts. If a customer has a special requirement for a hard to find metal, we often source and stock special inventory that would not normally be a part of our raw material product mix. Almost 40% of our inventory is stocked for individual customers.