Product category:
ERP and MRP systems and software
News Release from: Rent-I.T. Systems | Subject: 123MRP MRP software
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 16 July 2004
Automotive company installs new MRP in
record time
A subcontractor's MRP system was starting to show its age, but updating was expensive, so a new system was discovered and it was 'up and running' inside four weeks.
Freeman and Proctor, based in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, UK, manufactures custom pipe assemblies for aerospace and automotive customers such as Rolls Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin and Prodrive Their previous MRP system was starting to show its age and was difficult to extract data for reporting purposes, so they decided to upgrade
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 3 Mar 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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On contacting their vendor they discovered that simply updating to the latest version was going to cost upwards of GBP 30,000, so they decided to investigate alternatives.
Commented Phil Boffin, Commercial Manager, "123MRP was the first system we looked at - it did everything we wanted it to do 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." When working with industries such as Aerospace, traceability is paramount.
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F and P hold both ISO9000 and several manufacturer accreditations.
To maintain these they previously had to embark on a time-consuming tracking process; Said Boffin: "To trace across batches we used a hand-written system of job cards and quality control cards.
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 logged, 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 5." The potential for error has also been greatly reduced.
Said 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 to ensure that you enter information correctly the first time.
Also, it is intuitive in the way that you enter data - it follows a logical flow, especially with the wizards and shortcuts which really accelerate inputting of data.
This is especially important for customers' schedules, whose volatility in terms of complexity and lead time have increased dramatically over the years.
They can span a year or more, where virtually every line item can change from month to month." F and P are keen advocates of both lean manufacturing and lean accounting, therefore minimising the processes and paperwork involved from order to invoice is critical.
Boffin added: "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 of 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.
All of these savings have a positive knock-on effect and we estimate we will see overall lead-time reductions of between 10% and 20%." As with any business, the ability to analyse the performance of any part of your production is crucial.
Although F and P had developed a comprehensive range of reports with their previous MRP system, writing them was a time-consuming and cumbersome process, requiring complicated macros to be written to link back to MRP to obtain new data.
123MRP now allows dynamic manipulation of data in real-time.
"For us the flexibility of the reporting was a key factor in the decision to choose 123MRP.
Demands change as to what we want to see daily 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 depths of how far we can analyse data." As an Investor in People, Freeman and Proctor believes in redirecting spare resources to better use within the business.
Boffin concluded by saying, "123MRP simply gives us more capacity with the resources we have in terms of reducing leadtimes across all departments.
This can then be channelled into more proactive areas, and also allows us to react quicker to our customer's demands.".
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