A 1/2-13 x 2 grade 8 hex cap screw in yellow zinc is one of the most common parts in industry, and it has more names than anyone can keep track of. The OEM has a print number for it. You have an item number. The mill has one, the importer has one, and the distributor whose labels are on the customer's bins has another. When a buyer searches for the wrong one, he either calls or buys from whoever's label is in front of him.
Let customers order in their own numbers
With customer part numbers, an OEM or contract manufacturer orders with its own print numbers. Their number maps to your item and their buyers never learn your catalog. Set it on a master account and every plant underneath shares the same cross references, which matters for a manufacturer with several facilities on one ERP.
My Catalog shows a customer everything they have ever ordered from you. For a buyer at a busy plant, that is often the fastest way to order: the forty or fifty fasteners they use all the time, without searching through thousands of sizes. It also reminds them of lines they forgot you carry.
Scan a competitor's bin label
Here is where fastener distributors win cribs. The Fastener App lets a customer or rep scan another distributor's bin label, Imperial, Fastenal and others, and get your matching item. A rep walks the crib, scans the rival's labels, and leaves with a list of your equivalents.
Behind that sits the cross-reference table: every competitor part number matched to yours. The rule is that each match is checked on the things that make a fastener a fastener:
- Size: diameter, imperial or metric.
- Thread: coarse, fine or metric pitch.
- Length: measured the right way for the head style.
- Grade or class: grade 2, 5, 8, A325, class 8.8 or 10.9, stainless 18-8 or 316.
- Finish: plain, zinc, yellow zinc, hot-dip galvanized and so on.
Cross-reference progress shows how many items are crossed to each competitor so far and what is in progress, so you know how ready you are before you take a crib on.
Why the cross wins the crib
Most crib conversions stall on part numbers, not price. The plant likes your service, but nobody wants to relearn every bin, and quality does not trust that your "equivalent" grade 8 really is one. A checked cross reference answers both. Your labels go on, their part numbers stay the same, and the operators keep working the way they always have.
Be strict. If the competitor's part is a grade 8 and your nearest stock item is a grade 5, do not cross it. If the finish differs, flag it and offer the right part. A crib list that catches those differences proves you know fasteners, and that is a big part of why a plant changes suppliers in the first place.
The same method works on OEM prints. When a buyer sends a bill of materials full of print numbers, crossing them to your stock items turns a slow quote into a fast one, and keeps the follow-on orders with you.
Pick the competitor whose labels you see most in your target accounts. Cross their top hundred lines, check each one on size, thread, length, grade and finish, and bring that list to your next crib walk.
Want to see The Fastener App with your own catalog and customers? See how it works.