Fabricate, stock, and deliver on one system
Fasteners, steel, electrical, plumbing, and building materials — cut, kitted, and delivered without the shop and the warehouse keeping separate books. Serial and heat-number tracking carries through both.
Where the second system usually appears
Industrial distributors rarely only distribute. Somewhere in the building there is a saw, a press, a kitting bench, or a fabrication cell, and the moment material is transformed the distribution software stops being able to describe what happened. So the shop gets its own system, or more often a spreadsheet, and the two are reconciled by someone who remembers.
The visible symptoms are familiar: the counter sells stock the shop already consumed, a job’s real cost is not known until well after it shipped, and a heat number that has to survive a cut-to-length operation gets re-typed at the other end. None of those are pricing or inventory problems. They are all the same problem — transformation happening outside the system of record.
Make: fabrication that feeds the same inventory
Cut-to-length, light assembly, kitting, and make-to-order work run as work orders against operation-level routings. Material is consumed from the same stock the counter and the warehouse pick from, so the inventory position reflects the shop floor rather than the last count. Job costing captures material, labor, and scrap per work order, which means the margin on a fabricated job is known when it closes. See how manufacturing works in CDXAI for the full production side.
Move: counter, contract, and delivery on one order book
Will-call and counter sales, contract customers, drop-ship and special-order lines, and delivered orders all run through the same order management and post to the same ledger. Contractor price tiers and customer price books apply at entry, quotes convert to orders without re-keying, and unit-of-measure conversion handles each, box, pallet, and linear foot without anyone doing arithmetic in their head. Delivery and dispatch are covered in route dispatch; the warehouse side in warehouse management.
Prove: provenance that survives the shop
Traceability here is about proving provenance and holding the paper trail when a spec is questioned — including when the part was cut, welded, or assembled in your own shop. Serial and heat numbers are captured at receiving and carried through fabrication to delivery, with heat number lineage preserved across cut-to-length and assembly operations. Mill test reports and certificates of conformance attach at the lot, country of origin is tracked for Buy American and domestic-content requirements, and warranty registration and claims track against the serialized unit.
Because those records live on the lot rather than in a folder, a customer-specific certification packet can be generated at shipment instead of assembled by hand the week after.
Common questions
We both fabricate and distribute. Does that mean two systems?
No, and that combination is what CDXAI was built for. Cut-to-length, light assembly, and kitting feed the same inventory the counter sells from. A work order consumes from the same stock the will-call desk is pulling against, finished goods release directly to the orders waiting on them, and serial and heat numbers carry through the fabrication rather than being re-entered on the other side of it.
How is heat number traceability handled through fabrication?
The heat number is captured at receiving against the lot and carried through consumption. When material is cut to length or assembled, the work order links input lots to output lots, so the heat number of the original mill material is preserved on the finished part. Mill test reports and certificates of conformance attach to the lot, which is what lets a certification packet be generated at shipment rather than assembled by hand.
Does it handle contractor pricing and customer price books?
Yes. Contractor price tiers, customer-specific price books, quantity breaks, and job-based pricing are part of order management rather than a bolt-on. Quotes convert to orders without re-keying, and margin is visible on the quote against current landed cost rather than the price book as of whenever it was last updated.
Can it run will-call and counter sales alongside delivery?
Yes. Counter and will-call transactions draw on the same inventory as delivered orders and post to the same ledger, so a part sold across the counter is immediately reflected everywhere. Drop-ship and special-order lines route to purchasing without leaving the order.
What about country-of-origin and domestic content requirements?
Country of origin is tracked at the lot and carried through fabrication, which is what Buy American and domestic-content certifications require. It appears on the certification packet generated at shipment alongside mill test reports and certificates of conformance.