In a plant, the person who knows which bearing just failed is the maintenance tech holding it. The person who can spend money is the maintenance manager or a buyer. Between them is a requisition, an email chain or a phone call, and the machine stays down while the paperwork moves. On nights and weekends, it is worse.
The app lets the people who know what is needed order it, while the managers keep control.
Managers approve, budgets hold
Each user on an account can be set up with the right level of control:
- A user can be marked as a manager for the account.
- The account can have a monthly budget, or none if left blank.
- With approval required on, every order goes to the manager first.
- With it off, only orders that push the calendar month past the budget are held.
- Held orders go to the manager by email and text with approve and decline buttons.
So a third-shift tech can scan the label for a pillow block and place the order. If it fits the month's budget, it goes through. If not, the maintenance manager gets a text and approves it from his phone. The line is back up sooner.
You can also choose what each account can do. Quotes-only mode suits engineering departments at an OEM that request pricing on drives and reducers, while purchasing places the orders.
Master accounts for multi-plant customers
A company with four plants does not want four setups. A master account holds the price file, the customer's part numbers and the terms for all its locations. No orders are placed on the master. Each plant inherits its price file, discount and part-number cross references, and anything set on a plant overrides the master.
That fits how reliability programs work. Corporate engineering often standardizes: one bearing brand, one coupling type, one belt line, one grease. Set it on the master and it applies everywhere. You can block an item on the master and name what they should order instead. The buyer is told at checkout and every plant underneath follows the rule. That is especially useful for lubrication, where mixing incompatible greases can cause failures, and a plant-wide standard needs to stick.
Bins work the same way. Load every bin on the master with each plant's account number in the Location column. Each plant sees only its own storeroom while corporate sees them all.
Why it matters to you
Approval chains are often why large plants keep calling instead of ordering online. Once they trust that budgets and approvals hold, more people can order, and more of the spend goes through your store. A master account across several plants, with their part numbers, standards and storerooms, is very hard for a competitor to undo.
For a large enough customer, private label gives them the app under their own name and logo while they keep ordering from you. Their maintenance teams see their company's store; you see the orders.
Set approvals up with the customer, not for them. Sit down with the maintenance manager and the buyer, agree who approves what and at what budget, and make sure both have the app on their phones. Once they approve a held order from a text, the rest of the team usually follows.
Want to walk through it with your own plant and OEM customers? Book a demo.