Houston, TX, - Universal Steel America, a steel plate processing metal service center, has implemented the metal service center ERP software STRATIX from the metal industry software specialist Invera. This is the third implementation of STRATIX at a metal service center that performs plate processing in the past year.

For Sales, STRATIX provides features that allow sales to enter a Quote or Sales Order and choose from a list of custom plate burned shapes making it easier and faster to enter the order. Some of these shapes include squares, rectangles, circles, rings, triangles, ring sections, trapezes, or irregular. Once the shape is entered, STRATIX computes the estimated processing time, cost and charge for plate burning/cutting, which assists the salesperson in providing a final price to the customer.

For Sales, Universal Steel also utilizes the Quote and Sales Order entry function to enter rolled plate cylinders. For rolled plate cylinders, STRATIX calculates the stretch-out width and length of the plate that needs to be cut, based on the ID or OD of the cylinder and the cylinder length. The stretch-out length incorporates reduction factors inherent in the rolling process.

Universal Steel also implemented STRATIXimage, a mill test certificate scanning and retrieval product that automatically prints or emails a copy of the original mill certificate or other third-party testing certificates at shipping time.

In addition, using the STRATIX XML document customization feature, several documents and labels were modified to address their specific business requirements.

Crissa Nicholas, Financial Controller at Universal Steel, added, "We were very impressed with Invera's knowledge of the metal service center industry and the specific details related to steel plate and plate processing. The STRATIX metal software had the specific features related to our plate business as standard features, which eliminated the requirement for any modifications. We were also able to take advantage of many on-line features such as entering our quotes on-line, an integrated production schedule, and the on-line load planning and logistics system. We were also pleased by the fact that the entire implementation process was completed in 8 months."