Thermal Spray Powders Inventory

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Plasma coatings service shops have unique requirements when it comes to thermal spray powders inventory control systems. Like every business, proper inventory controls on consumables is essential from accounting stand-points. However, here we would like to discuss the method of handling thermal spray powders and wires inventory from a metal spray processing angle. Most thermal spray coating houses have basic systems whereby approved coating powders are handed over to the flame spray operator. The needs of the powder inventory system gets a little bit more involved as we shall discuss here.
Years ago, I was involved in putting in place a PC based inventory control system for a thermal spray company for their powder crib. I was told to take an off the shelf inventory control software and adapt it to their needs. This was the beginning of the nightmare that ensued. Thermal spray coating service shops have unique requirements which off the shelf inventory software systems “generally” do not address. For example, the same coating powder – let’s say Powder 658C may be available in three different bins – one may be as received pending powder release certification, another may be in the powder certification released bin and yet another may be the same powder but made with tighter controls for specific applications. The total inventory may be 300 pounds, but the certified released inventory for non-specific jobs may only be 5 pounds; the thermal spray powder inventory software must raise red flags for the powder crib person to alert the foreman to schedule a powder release spray cycle in order to keep production moving along. Off-spec thermal spray powders purchased for non-critical jobs because of economic reasons must also be flagged accordingly. Another twist that comes to play is when thermal spray R and D departments want to specify a certain blend for research purposes; for example, there may be an on-going project where thermal spray powder A and powder B are to be blended in a certain ratio to get the final coating system; in that case, the software needs to pre-determine the availability on hand for the necessary components before the coating job can be scheduled. As you can see, the thermal spray powders inventory software system may need to inter-weave significantly with other areas of operations such as spray scheduling and thermal spray R&D in order to be effective enough as an automation tool.
Needless to say, I decided to scrap the off-the shelf inventory software that was purchased and wrote the whole code from scratch – the result was a superbly functional system that gave reports to the other departments – obviously also to the accounting gurus – because the bottom-line of any business including the thermal spray business is making money