Framework
The Scrap Yard Digital Maturity Index
Five levels, from paper tickets to an integrated yard. Each names the specific failure it still carries, so you can find your actual next constraint instead of buying software at random.
| Level | What it looks like | The failure it still has |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Paper | Carbon-copy tickets written by hand at the weighbridge. Prices are called out or remembered. The register is a book. | Nothing is queryable. A dispute or an inspection means physically finding a piece of paper, and margin is only knowable at year end, if then. |
| 2. Spreadsheet | Tickets are typed into a spreadsheet, usually the evening after. Prices sit in a second sheet. Someone owns the file. | Double entry, and the gap between the weighbridge and the keyboard is where errors enter. The file is a single point of failure and usually has no audit trail at all. |
| 3. Digital capture | Tickets are created at the weighbridge on a tablet or terminal. Pricing is applied by the system. The record is complete when the truck leaves. | Inventory and accounts are still separate systems that disagree. You know what you bought; you do not reliably know what you hold or what it is worth. |
| 4. Connected operations | Tickets, inventory, dispatch and invoicing are one system. Stock is valued as material is weighed. Approvals are logged. | The yard is internally consistent but externally isolated. Weights are still keyed by hand, and the accounting system is reconciled rather than fed. |
| 5. Integrated yard | Weights arrive from the indicator without keying. The ledger is fed rather than reconciled. Margin is visible per material, per supplier and per lot, in the same period the trade happened. | None structural. The constraint moves from information to judgement: what to buy, what to hold, when to sell. |
Level 1: Paper
Carbon-copy tickets written by hand at the weighbridge. Prices are called out or remembered. The register is a book.
What still goes wrong: Nothing is queryable. A dispute or an inspection means physically finding a piece of paper, and margin is only knowable at year end, if then.
The next real step: Digitise capture, not reporting. Reporting on paper tickets that were never complete does not help.
Level 2: Spreadsheet
Tickets are typed into a spreadsheet, usually the evening after. Prices sit in a second sheet. Someone owns the file.
What still goes wrong: Double entry, and the gap between the weighbridge and the keyboard is where errors enter. The file is a single point of failure and usually has no audit trail at all.
The next real step: Capture at the point of weighing, so the record is created once by the person who saw the load.
Level 3: Digital capture
Tickets are created at the weighbridge on a tablet or terminal. Pricing is applied by the system. The record is complete when the truck leaves.
What still goes wrong: Inventory and accounts are still separate systems that disagree. You know what you bought; you do not reliably know what you hold or what it is worth.
The next real step: Make inventory derive from the ticket rather than being counted separately.
Level 4: Connected operations
Tickets, inventory, dispatch and invoicing are one system. Stock is valued as material is weighed. Approvals are logged.
What still goes wrong: The yard is internally consistent but externally isolated. Weights are still keyed by hand, and the accounting system is reconciled rather than fed.
The next real step: Close the two remaining loops: automatic weight capture, and a real accounting integration.
Level 5: Integrated yard
Weights arrive from the indicator without keying. The ledger is fed rather than reconciled. Margin is visible per material, per supplier and per lot, in the same period the trade happened.
What still goes wrong: None structural. The constraint moves from information to judgement: what to buy, what to hold, when to sell.
The next real step: Nothing to buy. Use the information.
A note on level 5
Level 5 requires automatic weight capture, which depends on your indicator having a data port and on something local reading it. Scraplytics does not do that unaided, and we say so on where we are not a fit. Most of the value in this model is in the move from 2 to 4, which is software and discipline rather than hardware.
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