“Take the jump, it’s worth it,” says construction materials producer to small manufacturers

Scottish insulation products manufacturer IndiNature gained control of orders, inventory, purchasing, production, and costs within a few months of implementing ERP software. “Take the jump. It’s worth it. Don’t wait,” says supply chain manager Nina McKeown.

Scaling up sustainable insulation manufacturing

Founded in 2016, IndiNature is a Scottish manufacturer of natural fiber insulation products. The company turns natural fibers, including UK-grown industrial hemp, into construction insulation products.

In the beginning, IndiNature’s production setup was relatively straightforward. As volumes started increasing, however, managing individual parts of the operation with spreadsheets was no longer enough.

Nina McKeown explains, “It was all being done in Excel, and we realised that wasn’t going to work.”

While the IndiNature team already had experience with large ERP platforms, implementing an enterprise-scale solution in a small business would have added unnecessary complexity.

“My background is SAP, and I realised that wasn’t going to be the right way to go for us,” McKeown says.

Flexibility and cost tipped the scales

IndiNature evaluated several alternatives while comparing the systems in terms of cost, efficiency, and flexibility. The company ultimately decided that MRPeasy offered the best combination for its requirements. With relatively little legacy data to migrate, implementation took only a couple of months.

“It was quite a quick implementation, to be honest,” McKeown says.

One system for managing orders, inventory, purchasing, production, and costs

MRPeasy is now used across a large part of IndiNature’s operation, with each customer order running through the system from quote to delivery.

“We use customer order creation, shipments, stocktaking, inventory, placing orders to vendors, manufacturing, the production module, and all the documentation that comes with shipping,” McKeown says.

For McKeown, three areas stand out as particularly important: production tracking, control over raw material inventory, and order processing. Bringing these processes together gives the company a clearer picture of what is happening across the operation without having to manually consolidate information from different spreadsheets.

Cost tracking has also become an important part of IndiNature’s everyday use of MRPeasy. Having manufacturing, purchasing, and inventory information in a single system helps the company remain profitable.

“MRPeasy helps us keep an eye on production costs and make sure our margins are healthy,” McKeown says. “We use the cost tracking feature almost daily.”

Customer service benefits from easily accessible information

The centralised order information also benefits customer service. When customers contact IndiNature about an order, the team can quickly check its status instead of looking through separate spreadsheets or asking different departments for an update.

“I can very quickly see where the order is in the system and when it’s going to be delivered,” McKeown says.

Lot tracking brings traceability to the finished product

Traceability is another part of IndiNature’s manufacturing workflow. The company uses barcodes and lot numbers to carry the relevant information from material lots through production and ultimately to product labels.

“MRPeasy provides us with end-to-end traceability,” McKeown says. “We don’t have issues very often, but if something occurs, we know exactly which batch it was.”

A system that supports a scaling company

For a scaling company like IndiNature, McKeown rates MRPeasy extremely highly for its ability to support the manufacturing operation.

“I would say MRPeasy is easily a nine or a ten,” she says. “At the level we are right now, as we scale up, it’s the perfect system.”

McKeown’s advice to other small manufacturers considering the same move is straightforward: implementing an ERP or MRP system need not be as intimidating as it may initially appear.

“Don’t be scared to use it, because it’s so easy. Take the jump. It’s worth it. Don’t wait.”