In this guide 6 sections
Follow the valve, not features. Choose software that links material certificates to heats, holds work at customer inspection points, stores pressure test records by serial number and prints the data book for each shipment. Test it on one real order.
Start with how your parts are made, not the feature list
Generic software sees stock and orders. Yours must see heats, lots and stages, because a valve plant buys castings, machines them, assembles trim and tests, while a fitting plant forges, heat treats and inspects. That gap is where projects stall.
Draw one product’s path on a single page, naming every stage, every document that travels with it and every point where a customer may stop the job.
Carry that page into each demo. Drop any vendor that cannot follow it from foundry receipt to the packed unit with each certificate, heat number and hold point visible on screen.
Casting, forging and material certificates
Castings arrive in heat lots with a material test certificate listing chemistry and mechanical results, and forgings add the lot and heat treatment records, all held against the receipt.
Ask the vendor to scan a certificate, link it to a heat and retrieve it from a finished valve serial while you watch. Five clicks is a warning.
Ask about rejects too, because a foundry that keeps shipping porous bodies should lose its approved status on evidence, not on the buyer’s memory. Porosity found at machining should flow back to the foundry’s supplier rating as a recorded event, not a loose note on a job card.
- Heat and lot number captured at receipt
- Certificate file stored against the heat
- Foundry or forge supplier rating from rejections
- Heat visible on the valve serial record
- Quarantine for uncertified material
Test records and inspection hold points
Pressure tests need serial level records with medium, test pressure, hold time, gauge ID, result and sign-off, because a single status tick fails the moment a customer audits.
Hold points matter equally. Many orders stop work until a customer or third party inspector witnesses a test or approves a stage, so the software must block the next operation until released.
Try breaking it in the demo by asking to skip a witness point on a shell test, then watch whether the system refuses and who is allowed to override.
- Serial-level shell and seat test records
- Gauge calibration due dates
- Customer and third party release steps
- Blocked next operation until release
- Printable test certificate
Documentation packs and dispatch
Many valve orders end with a data book of material certificates, pressure test reports, drawings, inspection plans and a packing list, so ask who compiles yours today.
A good system assembles the pack from linked records, while one that still has staff copying certificates into folders by hand has only moved the work onto a screen.
Check dispatch too. Packing lists, nameplate marking and heat references should come from those same records, because retyping a heat number onto a nameplate invites error.
Run one real order through before you sign
Ask each shortlisted vendor to load one live order with its hold points and take it from casting receipt to data book, then score every step they skip.
Score the vendor on what you saw, not on what the brochure promised, and write the evidence beside each criterion before the next demo blurs it. Pick the product that handled your awkward order, because the cleanest sample is not what the shop floor will run on a busy Monday, when three expedites arrive together. Clean samples flatter every product.
Vendor scoring worksheet
Criteria run down the left: heat capture, certificate linking, serial test records, hold point blocking, documentation pack, dispatch papers and drawing revision control. Columns hold each vendor, a verdict of met, half met or missed, the demo evidence, and a note on what your team would still do by hand.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Do we need full ERP for a valve plant?
Not always. Some plants run well on a focused manufacturing product with traceability and test records, so choose by the stages and documents you must control.
Can software replace the customer inspector?
No. It records every hold point and blocks the job until the release is entered, while the inspection itself stays with the people responsible for it.
How much of our history should we migrate?
Bring open orders, live heats and customers. Archive older certificates as scanned files linked by order number, so they stay searchable without a full import of every closed job.
What should we ask a vendor about our drawings?
Ask how revisions are released, how old ones are locked and how the job card shows the current letter, since a machinist should never cut to a superseded drawing.