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A representative process flow diagram

Benefits
The software is used for the past four years. It is observed that it provides a wastage reduction of 1–2 % of total reinforcement used at the project. For example, for a 25000 MT of reinforcement consumption, it provides a wastage reduction of 250-500 MT. Benefits can be summarised as below:

1. Generation of optimum off-cut lengths leading to reduction of reinforcement wastage
2. Reduction in manpower due to defined shifting of bars and related cutting
3. Any time availability of cut-lengths as well as raw material stock
4. Faster verification of sub-contractor bills
5. Aids in accurate reconciliation of reinforcement yard
6. Inventory control and procurement monitoring
7. Accountability of sub-contractor’s productivity.

Time to implement
Before offering the software to the industry, we used it successfully within HCC on more than 25 projects of different sectors during the past three years and it is now being used at a few other organisations too.

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The software can be implemented within ten days once the reconciled physical stock of reinforcement steel is handed over.

This includes adequate training to concerned people. It is observed that the end-users adapt the software quite well and quite fast once they undergo the required training during the said ten days. It’s very simple to operate.

Innovative alternate use of the same software
Some of the projects made a very innovative use of the same software. They decided to use the software not only after the reinforcement steel lands in the yard, but ‘before’ i.e. at the time of procurement.

The software was used to decide the optimum order length of reinforcement so that the wastage is minimised at the procurement stage itself. The optimum order length was different compared to the standard 12 meter length. It resulted in less procurement and obviously less wastage in terms of off-cut.

In a nutshell, this software can optimise your use of reinforcement steel, reduce wastage and facilitate better management of reinforcement. It’s easy to use, quick to deploy and inexpensive compared to the value that it provides.

It’s recommended that one should try it for couple of projects to begin with and proceed further based on this experience.