MetalTrace® Product Profile

MetalTrace® was originally conceived to manage Mill Test Reports (MTR) and was created by people with many years of experience in the traceability of documents in real world metal service center and fabrication operations.

MetalTrace® began as a single product but due to customer demand, grew to become a full suite of products. The true value of MetalTrace® is the ability to easily and accurately track, access and securely retrieve the complex documents that are defined by the one to many to many relationships that are created with your data, 24/7/365. You may sleep and go on holidays but your data never does.

MetalTrace® is different from Basic or Generic document management systems. Why Is This Important? MTRs generally have multiple criteria

One document may have:

• Multiple item numbers associated to it

• Multiple item descriptions associated to it

One heat number may have:

• Multiple documents associated to it

• Multiple item numbers associated to it

• Multiple item descriptions associated to it

One item number may have:

• Multiple documents associated to it

• Multiple heat numbers associated to it

Basic and Generic Systems can only search by one or a few criteria:

For Example: Heat # OR Item # OR Product Description MetalTrace® “smart” indexing and searching allows you to index and search by multiple criteria, thus storing and retrieving documents that have a unique combination of criteria.

For Example:

• all documents with a specific item number AND

• all documents with a specific heat number AND

• all documents with a specific description AND

• any other criteria you can think of up to a total of 40.

The result is you store or retrieve only the documents that have the unique combination of item number, heat number, item description or other criteria you require. This eliminates having to wade through hundreds or thousands of search results produced by basic or generic systems.

1. Problem – Multiple Criteria A problem exists that is virtually unique to the metals industry, MTRs have multiple item combinations so you need to search by multiple criteria to find the correct document you require.

Solution – MetalTrace® Enables indexing and searching with multiple criteria. MetalTrace® “smart” indexing and searching allows you to index and search by multiple criteria thus storing and retrieving only documents that have your unique combination of criteria.

For Example:

▪ all documents with a specific heat number AND

▪ all documents with a specific item number AND

▪ all documents with a specific description AND

▪ any other criteria you can think of up to a total of 40.

The result is you store or retrieve the documents that have the unique combination of heat number, item number, item description or other criteria you require. This eliminates having to wade through hundreds or thousands of search results produced by basic or generic systems.

WHY? Because MetalTrace® links each data stream not only to the document but to every other data stream. Let’s look at some other metals industry problems and the MetalTrace® solutions.

2. Problem – Usage Tracking Generic systems index a single field to a document, then index that document (and possibly others) to a Purchase Order (PO).

Example – Index:

Item A to Document 1 to PO

Item C to Document 2 to PO

Item E to Document 3 to PO

The problem is generic systems do not link each data strand to every other data strand therefore when you search by PO the generic system does not identify the Item# and Heat# combinations specific to the PO.

Solution – TraceBack™

• Links all information on a document to all other information on a document

• Links documents to POs, SOs, Jobs, Phases, Delivery Dates, etc.

• Allows you to find specific Item # / Heat # / P.O. combinations or specific Customer / Date / Item Description / Heat # combinations.

TraceBack™ allows you to associate line items with ongoing jobs, orders and projects. This creates a retrievable historical record to track MTRs, products, delivery information and more.

Generic System

MetalTrace®

3. Problem – Efficient assembly of documents for a completed project

Manually assembling documents for a project can take hours, days or months.

Solution – JobDataReport™ Job Data Report™ enables you to effortlessly link multiple documents to a single project or one with multiple phases.

Documents such MTRs, drawings, travel sheets, test reports, etc. can be stored, retrieved, viewed, emailed, faxed, printed or copied to CD or DVD to eliminate paper. Manually assembling project documentation can take hours, days or months. Job Data Report™ can do the same job in minutes.

4. Problem – thousands of different document types The stress and inefficiency of many thousands of documents such as Purchase or Sales Orders, Proofs of Delivery and more located in filing cabinets and holding baskets throughout your company.

Solution – BarcodeTrace™ Documents with a barcode on them can be scanned instantly and error-free into MetalTrace® and made available to you or your staff at one office or in multiple locations or to your customers wherever they may be.

5. Problem – 80/20 Rule 80% of your documents come from 20% of your suppliers and are sent to 20% of your customers.

Solution – MetalTrace2MetalTrace™ MetalTrace2MetalTrace™ is like what banks use to send money, Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). It permits the exchange of documents electronically, instantly and error-free between MetalTrace® users. Documents that exist in one MetalTrace® database can be transmitted ElectroMagically™ to another MetalTrace® database. This eliminates the cost of manual receipt, re-entry and error. MetalTrace2MetalTrace™ increases efficiency and eliminates the cost of document transmission between companies.

6. Problem- MTR Creation Your company must create MTRs, ensure product meets standards, store MTRs electronically and make them available to your staff and possibly your customers via print, email, fax or the Internet.

Solution – MTRCreator™

MTRCreator™ enables you to create MTRs, automatically check the chemical and physical specifications to assure compliance with ASME, ANSI or API standards, instantly notify you if something does not meet specification, use your corporate logo and other appropriate company information and give you the option of putting customer information on the MTRs generated. MTRCreator™ ensures all MTRs are “first generation” perfect copies with no scanning involved. MetalTrace™ has grown to become an entire suite of software products. It was originally designed for MTRs but has evolved to enable you to manage any type of document and can be used by anyone in the metals industry supply chain.

Trace Products:

MetalTrace® TraceBack™ | JobDataReport™ | BarcodeTrace™ | MetalTrace2MetalTrace™ | MTRCreator™ 

Imagine

Just imagine what life would be like never having to dig for documents in filing cabinets or boxes again and instead have them all available on the Internet or on DVD and be able to tie your customers and suppliers to you electronically.

MetalTrace®, TraceBack™, BarcodeTrace™, MetalTrace2MetalTrace™, JobDataReport™, and MTRCreator™ can make things easy for you.

Simple, Fast, Secure Document Management

If you have any questions, would like to see a demonstration or receive the names and contact information of companies that use MetalTrace® so you can ask them how it has helped in their operations, please contact Trace Applications Inc.