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Insights & Updates
Product updates, industry insights, and best practices for steel service centers and metal distributors.
Margin Leakage in Steel Distribution: Where the Money Disappears
Steel service centers operate on 15% to 25% gross margins. Between pricing errors, untracked costs, and freight miscalculations, the actual margin varies wildly.
The State of Digital Transformation in Steel Distribution: 2025 Report
An honest assessment of where the steel industry stands on technology. Most service centers still run on-premise desktop software.
How to Calculate Steel Processing Charges That Actually Cover Your Costs
Most service centers set processing charges based on gut feel and annual reviews. A cost-based approach ensures every job contributes to the bottom line.
The Real Cost of Running Five Disconnected Systems
A typical mid-size service center runs MetalTrax for inventory, QuickBooks for accounting, Outlook for CRM, Excel for quoting, and a whiteboard for production scheduling. We calculated the hidden costs.
How Steel Service Centers Can Win Government Infrastructure Contracts
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated $1.2 trillion. Service centers that understand government procurement win the business.
MTR Management: The Paperless Path to Compliance
Every piece of steel that ships needs a Mill Test Report. Most service centers manage these as paper documents stored in folder structures that make finding a specific MTR a 15-minute archaeological expedition.
The Hidden Cost of Manual Data Entry in Steel Distribution
A 25-person service center wastes 50 to 75 hours per week on manual data entry between disconnected systems. Here is the real cost.
The Vertical SaaS Revolution: What Toast, Procore, and Veeva Teach Us About Steel Software
Toast built a $15 billion company by understanding that restaurants are not retail stores. Steel distribution is next.
Why Steel Service Centers Should Stop Faxing Purchase Orders
In 2025, a surprising number of steel service centers still fax purchase orders to mills. The cost of this practice goes beyond the paper.
Why Generic ERP Fails Steel Service Centers
SAP, Oracle, and NetSuite were built for widget manufacturers. Steel inventory is dimensional, priced by CWT, tracked by heat number, and managed as remnants after processing. Here are the five fundamental mismatches.