A lot of power transmission business is steady. A plant uses grease on a schedule. Its drives go through belts at a predictable rate. Common bearings for motors and conveyors are replaced at a steady pace. An OEM building machines uses the same bearings, mounted units, sprockets and couplings in every unit it ships. Yet those predictable orders often arrive late, by phone, after the last box was used.
The app has three tools for repeat business.
Reorder: buy it again in two taps
Reorder lets a customer buy a past order again or pick from saved items. A planner who orders the same cases of grease, the same belts and a handful of bearings every month opens last month's order, adjusts the quantities and sends it. No searching, no typing, no dropped suffix.
AutoPilot reorder: usual items on a schedule
AutoPilot reorder orders the customer's usual items on a schedule so they never run out. It also works with scanning: one scan orders what the plant actually uses, sized to the number of days of stock they want to keep on hand.
The customer decides how much control to keep, using a dial with three settings:
- Suggest: the app suggests the reorder and the customer places it.
- Ask first: the reorder is prepared and waits for the customer's yes.
- Run on its own: the customer's own schedule releases the order without a check-in, for items they have chosen to trust to it.
Most plants start on Suggest or Ask first. After a few months, a maintenance manager might move grease, common belts and coupling inserts to Run on its own, and keep anything expensive, like a gearbox or a large spherical bearing, on Ask first. The customer sets the dial and the schedule; the app follows them. You can see which customers have AutoPilot turned on from the admin side.
Blanket orders for OEMs
OEMs often buy power transmission parts on an annual agreement: a set price for a set volume, released as production needs it. A conveyor builder might commit to a year's supply of mounted units and sprockets. A packaging machine maker might commit to a set of bearings and timing belts per machine. Blanket orders let the customer release against that agreement in the app, so each release is not a new PO.
For you, blankets give visibility. You can plan purchases from your bearing and PT suppliers around known demand. The buyer's desk helps: reorder by vendor with minimums and free freight levels in view, chase late vendor POs and track special orders.
Why steady reorders matter
When grease shows up on time, lube routes happen on time and bearings last longer. When belts are on the shelf, a drive gets a full matched set instead of one odd belt. That is good for the plant and good for your reputation as the supplier who keeps things running.
Lubrication is a strong place to start. It is consumed steadily, it is easy to forget, and running short has a real cost in bearing life. A grease and oil schedule that the maintenance manager watches for a couple of months, then moves to Run on its own, is often the first step toward trusting the rest of the storeroom to a schedule.
Look for the accounts that buy the same items every month. Start them on Reorder, then offer AutoPilot on Suggest, and let them turn the dial when they are ready.
Want to see it with your own bearings, belts and plant accounts? See how it works.