Insight: 5 challenges SME manufacturers can resolve with MRP software

Managing a small manufacturing company is an enormous task rife with challenges. MRPeasy shares five real-life manufacturing challenges that real UK-based SME manufacturers have resolved by implementing MRP software.

1 – Stockouts and overstocking

One of the biggest issues that MRP software tackles is material planning. The need to find a balance between too little and too much stock is very acute in small manufacturing companies as each unit represents tied-up cash that could be put to good use elsewhere. MRP software is made to accurately determine material requirements, ensure timely stock replenishments, and facilitate demand planning, allowing companies to optimize their inventory. Paul Long, Website Manager at health and beauty manufacturing business Myddfai Trading Company says: “MRPeasy tells us what our requirements are, and when we create the manufacturing orders, we don’t have to go and tell the manufacturing staff anything, they can simply pull the information from MRPeasy. At the same time, we’re getting flags for stock statuses and can replenish purchases.”

2 – Data getting lost

Data is key to making good business decisions. But managing business information in spreadsheets (or even worse, physical archives) is unsustainable in the long run as finding the correct piece of data becomes increasingly difficult as the company grows. Within an MRP system, however, your data is organized in a way that enables easy navigation and quick search. “We now have all the information in one place – we can see the part, when it’s due, what the costs are, everything. All you need to find is just one click away, which saves us a huge amount of time, and we have eliminated the horrendous paper trail we previously had,” details Lee Brien, Director of Operations at precision engineering company A Wrate Engineering.

3 – High administrative overhead

Although necessary, it seems counterproductive to hire additional administrative staff if you could put the same resources into growing the manufacturing side of the business. The level of automation MRP software creates, however, allows companies to significantly reduce administrative tasks, especially those involving data entry and analysis. Javed Bashir, Production Director at textile manufacturing company B&A Quilting confirms this: “We are about eight times the size we were in 2017 but have barely doubled the administrative side of things. MRPeasy really has helped us immensely.”

4 – Traceability regulations

Being able to track the flow of goods throughout the value chain brings substantial benefits to any company, but especially to those working in heavily regulated industries. Achieving regulatory compliance can be a daunting challenge but it is made effortless by MRP software. “I had a target to install MRPeasy and become ISO 9001 approved within 6 months. After 6 months of using the system, SGS [an industry-leading certification company] came in to undertake the certification audit and we passed without a single non-conformance. On the report, SGS also commented on how good MRPeasy was with traceability,” states Paul Watson, founder of MPW Precision.

5 – Managing complex BOMs

Although the bill of materials functionality is the core of every proper production planning software, many MRP systems do not support complex, multi-level BOMs or BOMs with parameters. Therefore, if you need to manage the manufacturing of intricate products with lots of subassemblies, make sure to find a solution that accommodates that. Ralph Jones, Director at Britannia 2000 Holdings: “MRPeasy is brilliant, it’s enabled us to build up BOMs for all our products. We have BOMs for each individually printed circuit board and for each sub- and final assembly. It works a treat. One of our mission computers has a BOM of 15-20 pages.”