Fabricators often find themselves trying to do more with less into today’s fast-paced world, and technology offers a way to reduce operating costs while also increasing efficiency. Leeco is also turning to technology to simplify steel plate sourcing for our customers, reducing the time they spend on an order and making the process more cost-effective.

I wanted to take a moment and share with you some ways we are utilizing technology to improve the speed and accuracy of orders, so that our customers can spend less time buying steel plate and spend more time growing their business.

Leeco Pro: Buy & Manage Orders Online 

One of our customers’ biggest challenges is simply having real-time access to pricing and inventory. As the manufacturing sector becomes more and more digitized, several of our customers are also relying less on paper files and need a way to quickly access digital files. Additionally, as customers worked through backlogs and high demand following the COVID pandemic, they found themselves struggling to find a way to quickly place plate orders.

After hearing about these challenges, we knew we had to take action to support our valued partners. Therefore, we built and launched an ecommerce platform for our customers called Leeco Pro in 2021, which allows them to browse and buy our core grades online, anytime, anywhere. You can learn more about buying plate on Leeco Pro by watching the video below.

We spent time speaking with dozens of fabricators and OEMs while developing Leeco Pro to learn more about their purchasing process and what features would benefit them in an online buying platform. We knew that Leeco Pro had to be easy to search, and that features like storing “favorite” products and placing reorders would help our customers save a significant amount of time. Having access to real-time pricing and inventory, along with the ability to lock-in pricing with a quote, was extremely important to our customers.

In speaking with these customers, we also found that being able to access digital copies of their order documents in one location would streamline their order management process. We built Leeco Pro with a centralized document center that allows customers to view documents for all Leeco orders, not just those placed on Leeco Pro.

Leeco Pro has proven to be a success for our customers, several of whom provided positive feedback on how using the platform greatly simplifies and saves time on the procurement process.

To ensure that we are making Leeco Pro the best it can be and regularly making updates that save customers even more time, our team is constantly enhancing the platform’s features. You can read more about some of our recent enhancements here.

Plate Processing Technology

Many of the parts and equipment our customers produce require multiple plate processing steps, which can be very time consuming and cost prohibitive.

To reduce the number of processing steps required for intricate parts, we invested in state-of-the-art equipment that performs multiple processes on the same machine.  By offering cutting, drilling and blasting services, we are able to turn over fabrication-ready materials so our customers can produce their products faster and more efficiently.

Employee safety is our number-one priority, so we are also investing in technology and processes that enhance plate processing safely.

Manually deslagging cut parts – a process that involves a lot of plate handling – increases injury risk, so we invested in part cleaners to deslag. Not only does this make the parts cleaning process more time and cost-effective, but it also keeps our employees safe by reducing the amount of time they spend handling heavy materials.

Our team also developed an innovative method of welding materials for road plate applications that reduces plate handling, greatly reducing injury risk. This method also improves our accuracy and reduces the amount of time spent making welds.

 

At Leeco, each and every one of our customers is our partner, and we want their businesses to succeed. We are committed to investing in technology and processes that simplify the purchasing process for our customers.

Thank you for reading. Please reach out to our team if you are interested in learning more about Leeco Pro or our processing capabilities.

 

Jason Fredstrom

Executive Vice President, Leeco Steel

jason fredstrom, executive vice president of leeco steel