MRP Systems For D & G Moulding Ltd

D & G Moulding Ltd, based in Alton, Hampshire was founded in 1999 and provides design and manufacturing services for the plastic injection moulding industry. With a staff of five, production was run using a series of Excel spreadsheets, however this caused many problems. Said David Ivey, Company Secretary; “One of the major problems we had was co-ordinating work. We had no visibility of when work was required and often relied on sticking bits of paper on the wall to plan our workload. Although at the time we were small and could get away with that we knew that we had to look at systems that could handle it better.”

D & G decided to evaluate four MRP systems, one of which was 123insight, recommended by their local Business Link office. The three other systems were clearly unsuitable, with one vendor even failing to show up for a meeting and another product that appeared to be aimed at the US market. Said David; “123insight stood out head and shoulders above the others. We had planned to narrow our selection down to two systems and spend more time evaluating, but decided to take the training instead to evaluate the software in a live environment before effectively making a commitment. As we were paying a monthly subscription, if it did not work out we wouldn’t have lost much."

Two staff were sent on training in the Spring of 2004. Of the training David commented; “We learnt the system very quickly - in fact when we came away from the training we felt that we were fully able to use it.” As business continued to increase D & G delayed implementation, which is a decision that David now rues; “The delay in implementation was purely down to workload and resources. In hindsight if we had implemented earlier we would have made savings in time and effort and made our lives a lot easier. The whole process of implementation was actually very easy. It was also good to have someone at 123insight Technical Support holding our hand that was very tolerant of our lack of PC expertise.”

123insight went live across all areas of the business in April 2005. Immediately several benefits came to light. “We immediately had visibility; not only of what we were making for the following week, but also much further ahead. As a result we could run larger batches of parts and achieve further economies when buying materials. Our factory is also completely paperless now, with everything immediately available. Leadtimes went down from 3 weeks to an average of 5-8 days.”

Reporting is also so much easier. Said David; “Previously, to analyse supplier performance we would have to sift through piles of paperwork. Each month we went through that tedious procedure - now it takes literally two mouse clicks to define a report over a specific time period. Stock holding has reduced by at least 10%, with stock errors also down. In fact overall input errors have reduced as there is no duplication of data entry - once the sales order is raised everything is carried through to dispatch.”

2007 saw company growth of 200% with no increase of staff, and David is optimistic for the future; “We were looking for a software product that was easy to use, and also one that would be well supported, something that we felt appeared to be lacking in the industry - companies appear to be only too willing to sell you a product, but the attitude once you have it is often ‘Well, you’ve paid your money - tough’. The system delivered everything we were looking for - it allows us to identify the key indicators we need every month to judge how we are performing. 123insight has become an integral part of our company growth.”