Suburban OnSteel
Winter 2008
Perfecting Timelines
In 1996, Suburban Steel Supply added ornamental fabrication to its line of services in response to customers’ need for an alternative source for the product. The company quickly realized it could successfully fabricate ornamental steel products and even out-perform the competition. A decade later, Suburban Steel’s ornamental division grew exponentially with little outside sales support. Company President, Mark DeBellis became conscious of the increase in demand and the need for the company to improve its production time in order to deliver a superior experience its customers had come to expect from Suburban Steel Supply.
In an effort to remain true to its core service philosophy, Suburban Steel created a unique job scheduling system to allow its staff to continue to produce a quality product and manage increased demand for more jobs. The scheduling system determines the status of outstanding jobs and what its fabricators must do to accommodate incoming jobs to meet the needs and demand of the marketplace. The scheduling system process allows Suburban Steel to keep track of all outstanding jobs, regardless of their current stages. This allows the Suburban Steel team to control the process internally and gives everyone access to all available information.
DeBellis says Suburban Steel has made the entire ornamental process—from ordering to installation—better for the customer. Design decisions, field measurements, material purchases, fabrication, painting and installation are all scheduled to coordinate with the customer’s needs.
“You can’t run a business and produce a quality product on an unknown,” says DeBellis. “We are committed to being the company that can deliver what the customer needs and make good decisions throughout the process. We will be ready when the customer is ready.”
The new scheduling system is one more example of Suburban Steel’s superiority in the industry. Its scheduling process is far from the industry norm. Since Suburban Steel creates its entire schedule once the job is contracted, it can easily re-assign resources to meet any unexpected changes in the order or the deadline. Suburban Steel’s team is in constant communication with the customers making sure the timing of the final product is in line with the customers’ expectations.
“Suburban Steel is continuously trying to respond to the realities of the market,” DeBellis states. “Scheduling jobs this way allows us to give our customers maximum flexibility. If the customer makes the commitment to work with us, we will have the product ready and at the job site when they need it.”
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