Tri-Arrows Aluminum

Digitizing a manual process for a leading supplier of rolled aluminum sheets in North America.

The Story

Tri-Arrows Aluminum has been a partner with Slingshot for over a decade. To help assist their customers using their aluminum products, they have a technical team that routinely visits their customers’ plants. They would collect data about the plant and its operations to help better serve their customers. The data collected from these visits was typed into manual reports disseminated throughout the company.

As the “plant visit” function increased in importance and volume, they knew it was time to digitize the process. This would improve data accuracy, save time, and make it possible to run reports and analytics. They again chose Slingshot for the job due to our relationship and long history of success already working with them.

Technology: Swift, .NET Core, C#, Angular, Microsoft SQL Server, Docker,

UX/UI Design

Web Development

iOS Development

The Challenges	The Solutions
Data collected during visits were not being stored in a central repository, just in individual PDF reports	Collected data would automatically sync up with their Oracle database
Field Service Leaders used pen and paper, which resulted in inconsistent report formats	Digitized data entry and automatically generated consistent PDF reports
Many plant visits occurred in remote areas with unreliable or no internet connectivity	Implemented offline functionality that allows for manual and automatic sync processes
TAA did not have a reliable way to keep Plant Profile information up to date	Created a Plant Profile section of the application that persists critical plant data and metrics

The Challenges	The Solutions
Data collected during visits were not being stored in a central repository, just in individual PDF reports	Collected data would automatically sync up with their Oracle database
Field Service Leaders used pen and paper, which resulted in inconsistent report formats	Digitized data entry and automatically generated consistent PDF reports
Many plant visits occurred in remote areas with unreliable or no internet connectivity	Implemented offline functionality that allows for manual and automatic sync processes
TAA did not have a reliable way to keep Plant Profile information up to date	Created a Plant Profile section of the application that persists critical plant data and metrics

Hitting The Target

In early 2024, the new plant and profile visit application was launched as a web and offline-capable iOS tablet application. Field Service Leaders now use the iOS and Web applications in the field rather than manual note-taking. When online, the information is synced back up to a central database, which can then be synced with the Oracle ERP database and loaded into Tableau for analysis. Slingshot continues to iterate through the application, releasing new features while supporting the app long-term.