Slippery Rock Gazette

Codiak San Herrell

Solid Surface Designs

Slabsmith integrates with an industrial-rated barcode scanner that allows you to perform physical inventory in hours, not days.

Inventory bar code sample shows square feet, location and ID number for this Venetian Pearl slab.

Every stone fabrication shop will end up with leftover pieces from full slabs used for jobs. This raises a question: what is a shop to do with all of their remnants?

It is important to set a plan of action to organize the inevitable, overwhelming amount of remnants a shop generates every day of production before they become an inefficient eyesore. Organizing remnants is an underappreciated art in the industry, especially when a shop decides to improve their bottom line or create potential profit tactics – or when the issue arises of needing you need to find some matching material due to a broken piece of backsplash. 

Here at Solid Surface Designs, we eventually realized the importance of a very well designed and efficient inventory. Or, as we call it around the company, “lean culture.” Not only in the remnant aspect of the inventory, but with full slabs and even sinks kept in stock. The last thing a company wants to do is waste a great deal of time searching for material or have a nightmare end-of-year inventory. 

Our first step is to photograph every slab received using the Slabsmith digital inventory system. When we fabricate sink cut outs, we simply use blank photos or jpegs of the sinks. Slabsmith is efficient because it previews the photos from our photo board and provides options on the information we want to keep for each unit of material being saved, such as block numbers, job names/numbers, thicknesses, the project manager, a unique identification number, and several other options to cater to your inventory. The identification number is an employee-generated number given to each piece of material to make it unique and trackable. One important aspect of the identification number is that with a full slab, you can give it its own number, like 1023, for example. And when slab 1023 is cut down into a remnant, you give that remnant the same ID number and add a -1. So each time that piece gets cut down, it keeps getting a -1 until the piece is completely consumed or you no longer desire to keep it. So, when a slab gets cut into a remnant, and that remnant is cut a couple more times, the piece may end up having an identification number like 1023-1-1-1. To brand each piece with its own ID number, I recommend using sticker labels with barcodes. You can scan them with a hand scanner compatible with Slabsmith. The barcode labels can also provide extra information on them such as square feet, block numbers, etc. 

Aside from the labeling and the digital aspect of your inventory, the layout of your slab storage area is vital to ensure efficiency. The simpler the rack layout, the better. If you have four rows of racks for full slabs, going left to right, name the first rack I-A. Name the second row of racks I-B, and so on. The, “I” stands for inside, and A through D, for example, will give you a simple, basic layout. Do the same with your remnant inventory, but change the “I” to an “O” for outside. Use a numeric sequence with the rack spaces, and the final product of the system should end up looking like “1023-1-1 in O-B22.” 

If your digital inventory is done correctly, your team should be able to walk out to a rack space and find the material they are seeking right away, instead of wasting time hunting for material. The key here is to keep it simple, and keep it efficient.

Codiak San Herrell is a native of Aurora, Missouri. He is Warehouse Supervisor with Solid Surface Designs, where he serves on their safety and LEAN committee. Codiak is CPR / AED certified and currently working on other certifications.