Arrow Fabricated Tubing

Arrow Fabricated Tubing, a North American supplier of copper and aluminum tubing for the HVAC industry, operated with inventory tracking built on fragmented spreadsheets and paper-based tallies. In a sector where HVAC OEM customers require precise material traceability and on-time delivery, this approach created chronic inventory inaccuracies in finished goods. Without reliable visibility from production start through shipment, Arrow struggled to meet customer data integration requirements — a growing expectation among large HVAC manufacturers. The inability to share quality and traceability records electronically put key customer relationships at risk and limited Arrow's ability to compete on operational transparency.

In 2015, Arrow implemented the Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform, a cloud-based MES (Manufacturing Execution System) offered through Rockwell Automation, to unify production, quality, and inventory operations. The deployment introduced barcode scanning at every stage of the production process — from raw material receipt through finished goods storage — replacing manual counts and disconnected data entry. Plex captured operational data at each keystroke, creating a continuous digital record across the production floor. The platform's demand management and forecasting modules applied predictive analytics to historical order and purchase data, enabling more accurate forward-looking supply planning. Customer-facing data portals were also enabled, giving HVAC customers direct access to quality certificates and traceability records tied to specific production lots.

Finished goods inventory accuracy jumped from unreliable manual counts to a consistent 98–99% accuracy rate — a transformation that directly reduced costly write-offs and order fulfillment errors. Key outcomes included:

• Inventory accuracy: Sustained above 98%, regularly reaching 99%, compared to prior levels that were insufficient to meet customer expectations
• Customer integration: Quality and traceability data now shared electronically with HVAC customers, strengthening long-term supply agreements
• Forecasting: Order and purchase forecasting improved materially, reducing over- and under-stocking across the supply chain

Beyond the numbers, the shift to a data-driven operation changed how Arrow's teams approached continuous improvement — moving from reactive problem-solving to proactive analysis of production patterns.

• Replacing spreadsheet-based inventory tracking with barcode-enabled MES can deliver 98–99% finished goods accuracy for mid-size industrial suppliers
• Customer data integration — sharing quality certificates and traceability records electronically — is increasingly a competitive requirement, not a differentiator, in supplier relationships with large OEMs
• Capturing data at every production keystroke creates the historical foundation needed for meaningful forecasting and continuous improvement analysis
• Cloud-based MES platforms allow SMEs to access enterprise-grade manufacturing intelligence without significant on-premise infrastructure investment
• Align MES implementation scope with customer data requirements from the outset; the downstream relationship benefits often justify the project on their own