The road to improving efficiency within the supply chain can be a long one. That’s why we’re so excited that SmartCert was recently part of the conversation on Fully Threaded Radio – the industry’s leading voice on all things fasteners.

During Episode 175 – Once You’re In, “ACTION JACKSON” Tim Jackson shared his experience learning about SmartCert at the Pacific-West Fastener Association’s table top show in April.  When Tim came over to talk to us at Pac-West, he pointed out that he wasn’t easy to convince or educate on technology. But once we started telling him about what SmartCert is doing for the industry, he said “I would have bought this in five seconds.”

During the podcast, Tim talked about the challenges of cert management and trying to locate paper certs when they are needed – which “could take hours, if not days!”  He also pointed out the cumbersome task of filing all that paperwork, noting that they add “10 or 12 file cabinets every year” and not knowing “which one’s got the cert in it?”

“Everybody should have that. Who shouldn’t have that? Why should you not have SmartCert?  That’s a full time employee all the time, all the time,” said Tim.  We agree! And Tim’s final question? “Why the heck didn’t you come out with this five years ago?”

Tim Jackson

There was a company called SmartCert. Carmen Vertullo said, listen, I’m going to give you a job.  Go over there (to the SmartCert table at the Pac-West conference). And you have to know because I’m not the most technical guy in the industry. I’m by far the worst. And he said, go there and see if they can explain to you what it is and if you can come back and tell me about it.  I said, I got nothing to do, so I went over there and I started talking. And I was just kind of joking around. I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t really thought about it. So I sat down and I said, listen, I’m gonna sit down it’s gonna take a while I said, I’m not I’m not easy to convince or educate.  They started telling me about it and I’m like, I just looked at I said, I would have bought this in five seconds.

Eric, Dudas, Host of Fully Threaded Radio 

So SmartCert, had a table at the PAC West event is what you’re saying. You went and you were talking to them cold, basically not knowing anything about it?

Tim Jackson

Nothing. I didn’t even give it a second thought of what it meant SmartCert. So what they do is we had INxSQL and we would sell a lot of items in the industry that needed to be tracked, whether there was a little bit of aluminum, stainless, silicon bronze, A325, whatever those other numbers are. I never kept track. But the biggest problem we had was always, hey, that customer wants that cert. And everybody would we’d be in a roundtable everybody would look at each other like do you know what it is? Hell, I don’t know, do we have certs? I mean, I know we have them but who’s in charge of the certs and nobody would raise their hands. Okay, somebody go find a cert that will take hours, if not days to find certs.  This company, they attach the cert with the product when it comes across and it runs through INxSQL. I said you know how much money that would have saved me. She said it you know, and I think they gave me a price for a yearly and I said I would in a heartbeat bought that because that was one of our biggest problems when we had a big job and something went astray. They say okay, we need to see the cert and then you get something from I won’t name the companies but it’s comes to the Chinese like is that a cert? I don’t know, it might be a birth certificate. If you read Chinese, I don’t read Chinese. Send them this and we send it to him. That’s not it. Okay, we’ll try the other page. And then the worst was you’d have to file it. We had and you know, we probably had 10 or 12 file cabinets every year. Which one’s got the cert in it? And the AP lady would look at you like like I don’t know what a cert is. So this company, it I think it stays with the order. I didn’t go into depth but it stays with the order. And they keep it with you. Isn’t it that they keep it when it goes to their cloud? Yes, they keep it in the cloud. Everybody should have that. Who shouldn’t have that? Why should you not have SmartCert.  That’s a full time employee all the time, all the time.

Eric, Dudas

Right? Well, that’s the philosophy and it’s you know, you were not set up for this. It’s apropos that you bring it up because we’re right along on the bandwagon with all that and Carmen brought us into it too. And now we’re big advocates. And we were just thrilled when they partnered with INxSQL because, you know, we’ve been partnered with INxSQL ourselves through FCH (Fasteners Clearing House) for a while and so it’s all kind of coming together seems like it makes a lot of sense to us too.

Tim Jackson

Oh, and I had no idea you guys were a part of this. And Carmen didn’t either.  He was just trying to see if they could take some a layman like me and explain the worth of their system. And would it be worth it to me to buy it. And I had Rob with me he was my operations guy and he sat down he goes, “Ah, we were kind of upset. Why the heck didn’t you come out with this five years ago?”