So when Evansville Sheet Metal Works decided to develop an e-commerce Web site, www.cut2sizemetals.com, to build on its business model and expand it beyond its local area, the company wanted to maintain what had always worked at its brick-and-mortar location, according to Andy Hubbard, president of Evansville Sheet Metal Works.

"It wouldn’t require a big technological leap for our guys doing sales--they would get the order the same way if someone walks in," says Hubbard. "And that order comes through Compusource."

Specifically, Evansville Sheet Metal Works uses Metal Center Management System business software from Compusource, La Palma, Calif. It’s a complete distribution and accounting management system designed specifically for metal service centers.

"MCMS allows us to really track our inventory in our metal sales area to know what’s coming in, what’s coming out, what materials are allocated for a job so we don’t sell it twice," says Hubbard. "It’s got lots of good features that really give us the knowledge we need to have a metals service center and Web site."

Evansville Sheet Metal Works has used MCMS for at least 15 years, and when talks began in regard to an e-commerce Web site, Hubbard says he knew the software would be a critical component.

"Even though we worked with another vendor to do all the Web design, e-commerce, the hosting, the payment gateway and all of those things, we needed Compusource to make this usable and functional for our salespeople," says Hubbard. "And so what we asked them to do was take the order when it comes in from the Web site, import it into MCMS and give us a nice printout so that all the guys have to do is come in the morning, pull the orders off the printers, fill them and ship them."

All automation
Brian David, director of sales for metal distribution at Compusource, says his associates worked with the Web site developer for cut2sizemetals.com to provide integration for the Web site itself and the internal MCMS database at Evansville Sheet Metal Works.

"What the Web site does is allow their customers or prospective customers to shop and enter a request to purchase something online," says David. "The integration we developed then takes that request and takes it all the way through into their MCMS ERP system and prints out a pick ticket. That’s all an automated process now and in real time."

David also says integration of MCMS into cut2sizemetals.com has helped Evansville Sheet Metal Works expand its market.

"There are other service centers that are doing this kind of thing, but they’re mostly large companies," he says. "One of the things I think is unique about this is the collaboration between [the] Web site and our software, which has now let a small- to medium-sized, localized service center really open up their market."

Seeing results
As of mid-November 2009, cut2sizemetals.com had been live for about two months. At that time, however, it was already making an impact.

"We were probably averaging 30 visits a month on our old site with no e-commerce, and even after just two months, we’re at almost 200 a day," says Hubbard. "Part of that is through using Google ad words and marketing our site more than we used to, but still it’s an order of magnitude greater than we did before. And I expect that it will continue to grow." MM