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Lowest cost, yet highest value
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28/04/2005
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Key benefits Case Study: Freeman & Proctor Limited
Much cheaper than upgrading existing MRP
Low monthly cost of £1,240
Reporting and analysis greatly improved
Full traceability
Integrates with lean manufacturing and accounting
Lead times improved by 10—2%
Implementation cost only £4,00 with training
When faced with a £30,000 ERP upgrade bill for its ERP system, Nuneaton-based pipe and assemblies manufacturer Freeman & Proctor, which serves the aerospace and automotive sector, chose instead to go for a rented MRP software offering – and has never looked back.
Says commercial manager Phil Boffin: “123MRP was the first system we looked at – it did everything we wanted and there was no massive up-front cost. Also, the speed at which we were able to implement the system ourselves was impressive. We were live in under four weeks.”
And this isn’t simple MRP. F&P holds ISO9000 and several manufacturers’ accreditations. To maintain these it previously had to run time consuming paper-based tracking. Says Boffin: “As an example, an Aston Martin two-strut set might consist of 24 parts. Each part would have its own job card, which on the reverse would have batch traceability details, and in turn the quality control card would carry information relating to all of the part job cards.
“123MRP’s picking list contains all of this information. We are currently writing reports to produce labels to replace the manual processes, and I expect to reduce the average picking process for an order of this type from 20—30 minutes to less than five.”
The potential for error has also been greatly reduced. Boffin: “The old system was quite forgiving when you were entering data; however this would have a rather unforgiving knock-on effect. For example, it was easy to end up in a negative stock situation, which would only be discovered a month later, taking hours to resolve.
“123MRP enforces data integrity up front. Also, it is intuitive in the way that you enter data – especially with the wizards and shortcuts. This is especially important for customers’ schedules, whose volatility in terms of complexity and lead time have increased dramatically. They can span a year or more, where virtually every line item can change from month to month.
“123MRP has been instrumental in reducing the lead-time throughout all departments; from order entry, planning right through to invoicing. For example, we noticed an immediate improvement in the way we can despatch and invoice our customers. Previously, one despatch note would require one invoice. If we take the rollover kit for the World Rally Car, which comprises 60 items, this might be delivered in several drops – with 123MRP this can appear on a single invoice. As a result we are generating at least 100 invoices less per month.
“And with data entry across all departments also seeing improvements of around 50%, this is saving us several man-hours in each department per month. We estimate overall lead-time reductions of between 10% and 20%.”
Boffin also comments on the system’s real time analytics: “For us the flexibility of the reporting was a key factor. Demands change and we can now easily work with live data. There are many reports we can do now that we couldn’t before and we are still learning. [The system] simply gives us more capacity with the resources we have.”
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Author
Brian
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