MRP Software Implementation For Syrris Ltd

Syrris Limited, based in Royston, Herts, manufacture automated products for research and development chemists. Founded in 2001, the company had previously relied on a low-cost stock/orders application that ran alongside a collection of spreadsheets, but were finding that this was causing problems as the business expanded. Rob Ranford, Head of Operations said; “There was too much of a requirement for people to juggle information in their heads. We were losing information or not performing actions that needed to happen, and subsequently we spent too much time firefighting. It was at this point that we knew the systems we had were no longer viable for the turnover we were operating at, let alone the expansion plans that we had for the company.” CEO Mike Hawes added; “As the turnover grew the number of problems increased at a faster rate as more things fell through the cracks.”

Selecting a new MRP system

In 2007 the company decided to invest in MRP and started to research the market. Amongst others, they considered a manufacturing solution offered by one of their existing software providers, but after playing with a trial system they quickly discounted it. Rob noted that the systems evaluated cost ‘many tens of thousands of pounds’. They came across 123insight through recommendation, and requested the Multimedia DVD. Mike recalls; “The DVD was very useful, allowing the management team to get an insight into the system’s capabilities.” Rob then attended an Evaluation Workshop in October 2007, which he felt was a completely different approach to the traditional sales method; “With other systems a sales person visits and gives you a brief demo of the system. That’s about it before you have to sign on the dotted line. The Evaluation Workshop gave a sound overview of the system with no obligation - just the cost of a little time to see it. I found it very useful.”

The decision was made to select 123insight in March 2008 and Rob attended the no-obligation training the same month. “The training was excellent. The numbers that attend were fairly small so you get a reasonable amount of one-to-one time. I came away feeling confident about implementing and using the system.”

Implementation

Following training Syrris put together a strategy for implementation with three test licences. Rob used the 123insight Data Import Kit to transfer the data. “It was very useful. We had a few niggles getting some data in, but they were dealt with very efficiently by the 123insight support team. Importing the data did not take a huge amount of time. We ran the system for about a month just to check that everything was OK and went live on 1st June.”

Go-live and benefits

Immediately the company saw significant benefits. Rob continued; “We were very pleased with the clarity and accessibility of information. The financials screen immediately provides key business data that previously we would have had to dig around through various systems to obtain. Generally completing any data entry task was a lot faster than before.” Mike added; “From a management perspective it allowed us to find problems faster and often correct them before they could happen.”

Stock control saw major improvements. Previously all stock was booked in/out manually, with total stock price of a line item based on the current price rather than individual price at time of order. In the four years since going live Syrris has seen a 100% increase in turnover, however stock is only up by 50% - effectively a 50% decrease. Previously Syrris would perform a major stock check every six months but with inaccuracies now under 1% they simply perform rolling stock checks. Rob noted that this, along with better forecasting has massively improved the accuracy of leadtimes; “Planning has been a godsend. We know exactly what to order and when, and the manufacturing team always know what needs to be made to fulfill orders. When we run batch builds we know that we are not going to be hit with any stock shortages. Time is also saved due to reduced manual data entry.”

Custom documentation and reports

The ability to easily create custom documentation and reports out of the box is also important to Syrris, using 123insight’s included Report Designer tool. “We can quickly produce very professional  documents for customers, which is quite an additional bonus that makes a big difference. Anything that is customer facing that looks good paints a better image of the company.”  said Rob.

Mike concluded; “Spending tens of thousands of pounds up front is never very attractive for a rapidly growing company, so in terms of cashflow 123insight has the advantage. We’re saving at least one full time employee and have implemented a raft of new business improvements based on the data we now have. Our sister company, The Dolomite Centre, has also adopted 123insight as a result of our extremely successful implementation.”