From the mill's certificate to an answer you can find again

Seven steps every company that buys metal goes through with each certificate, and where Heatbook takes the work.

• Youa person's step
• Heatbookdone for you
• You, with Heatbookyou set it, the tool does it

1. 1

   Step 1: The certificate arrives

   You

   Steel, stainless or aluminium comes with a mill test certificate (EN 10204 2.2, 3.1 or 3.2; MTC, MTR): a PDF from the mill or the trader, often a scan, often several certificates in one file.

2. 2

   Step 2: Read it into a table

   Heatbook

   Someone has to get the heat numbers, the chemistry and the mechanical results out of the PDF. By hand that is 15 to 20 minutes a certificate.

   What Heatbook does: Upload the PDF. Each line comes back with its heat number, every value as printed, the page it stands on and the text printed there.

3. 3

   Step 3: Compare with your order

   You, with Heatbook

   The values have to be held against what you ordered: the limits of your specification, in your units.

   What Heatbook does: You type your own limits once. Each value is marked inside, outside or cannot tell, next to the mill's own requirement where the certificate prints one. The tool holds no table of any standard.

4. 4

   Step 4: Check what was flagged

   You

   A machine read the file, and it can be wrong. You look at the lines it marks, and at every figure you rely on, against the page named beside it.

   What helps: Lines from a scanned page are marked as not checked. A figure whose decimal mark could mean two numbers is not read. Each note stands at the line it is about.

5. 5

   Step 5: Decide

   You

   Accept, reject or ask the supplier. That decision, and whether the material conforms to anything, is yours. Heatbook never says so, and it does not check that a certificate is genuine.

6. 6

   Step 6: Keep it findable

   Heatbook

   Months later a customer, an auditor or your own production asks: which certificate covers heat 511552?

   What Heatbook does: With an account every heat goes into a register. Search by heat, cast, charge or lot number; spaces, dashes and letter case do not matter. The PDF stays with it.

7. 7

   Step 7: Hand it on

   You, with Heatbook

   The figures go into your own system, to a customer or into a report.

   What Heatbook does: Download one certificate, with the comparison against your limits, or the whole register as CSV for a spreadsheet.