How to stop running out of consumables in the middle of a job
What it solves
„The discs run out mid-job and the crew waits while somebody drives to the merchant."
Module used
Critical stock & resupply
Ten in the morning, the crew is in position, and the cutting discs run out. They did not run out suddenly — they had been going down for two weeks, in plain sight. It is just that nobody looks at a half-empty box and thinks „that is three more days".
Then comes the expensive part: somebody gets in the van, loses two hours to the merchant and back, and the rest of the crew either waits or moves onto something else and loses its rhythm. For a forty-lei consumable.
Consumables do not run out suddenly
This is the frustrating bit: unlike a breakdown, running out of stock is entirely predictable. The quantity falls steadily and visibly. What is missing is not the information, but somebody to look at it every day.
Which is why the usual methods do not hold:
- „You can see when it is running out." You can see it exactly then — too late to order.
- A fixed monthly order. Either you run out mid-month, or you have cash tied up in double stock.
- „The lads tell me." They tell you when it has run out, not when it was time to order.
- Stock across several locations. The depot has some, the site does not, and nobody knows until they ask.
A threshold per item, per location
In ToolFlux you set a minimum quantity per item and per location, because a central warehouse and a van do not need the same. From there, the checking depends on nobody:
Set the threshold once
„125 mm discs — minimum 20 in the central depot." Whatever you reckon gives you room to order at your leisure.
The server checks every morning
Daily, automatically. It does not depend on who opens the app — like the document alerts, it runs on the server rather than on somebody's phone.
Below threshold, you get an alert — or a request
You can leave the rule to notify only, or have it raise a supply request itself, against the warehouse you choose, for the quantity you want.
It does not order twice
Before creating anything, the engine looks at requests already open for that item. If one is pending, approved or in transit, it does not add another.
The request follows a flow, not a phone call
Whoever receives it approves or rejects it, with a reason. Every state is visible: pending, approved, in transit, confirmed on receipt, rejected or cancelled. „Rejected" is the warehouse's decision, „cancelled" is the site withdrawing — two different things, kept apart.
Point four is the difference between automation and noise. A system that raises the same request every morning until the goods arrive is ignored within a week — and an ignored system is worse than none, because you believe you are covered.
You order in packs, not in pieces
Stock is held per piece, because that is how it is consumed, but nobody orders 5,300 wall plugs — they order boxes. The app reads the same quantity back in ordering units: 5,300 pcs becomes 5 boxes and 300 pcs.
The purchase requisition is written the same way — in packs and remainder, grouped by supplier, exported as PDF. What you send the supplier is an order, not a list they have to translate.
What changes, in practice
The trip to the merchant does not disappear. The emergency trip does — the one made at ten in the morning, with the crew stopped, at shelf price. The order gets placed when you have time, from whom you choose, at a negotiated price.
The same rule works for materials — plugs, screws, cement — with the difference that there the quantity installed is tracked as well, not only the quantity consumed. The requisition this produces is one of the reports in what your tools actually cost.
The guide above covers one situation. The app covers the whole chain — from the scan to a signed, archived handover report.
See all featuresAlready using ToolFlux? The complete manual, step by step.
Other situations, solved