Thanks to decades of business experience and a reliable software partner since day one, high-precision component manufacturer MPW Precision has found a fast route to success.

About MPW Precision

After a German industrial organisation successfully acquired their previous long-standing manufacturing enterprise in 2017, entrepreneurs Maurice and Paul Watson promptly decided to go at it again and co-founded MPW Precision in December 2020. With over 60 years of combined experience in precision manufacturing, the father and son duo quickly set up their operation and decided to specialise in producing high-precision quality engineered components for use in larger fabrications and power generation. The company produces steel pipe systems, metal joints, hoses, and other precision crafted products using waterjet cutting and CNC machining manufacturing processes.

MPW Precision caters mostly to end-users with the clientele consisting of Formula One teams, British Steel, and many other blue-chip companies. After just two years in business and starting off with no clients, MPW Precision has had an energetic start. Today the company boasts 8 full-time employees and around a million pounds in annual revenue.

A lot of prior experience with MRP systems

With years of previous experience leading a manufacturing company, Managing Director, Paul Watson knew that complex manufacturing needs a capable MRP system for efficient and well-organised operation. He thus decided to implement MRP software from day one and set out to find a good match from the host of available software providers. Having previously worked with a number of different software systems, large and small, Paul had a good idea of what to look for.

As he knew the company would be on a fast growth path, the first key requirement was scalability. Since all of MPW Precision’s clients require ISO 9001 and other quality assurance instructions, an important functionality that Paul was also on the lookout for and which hugely simplifies QA processes, is end-to-end traceability. Being set up over three manufacturing sites and two home offices, it was also important that the software be web-based and able to run on off-the-shelf PCs and tablets. A final determining factor for the would-be MRP system was affordability.

After trialling a number of MRP systems, Paul demoed MRPeasy and quickly understood that the search was over. The SaaS provider ticked all the boxes and seemed easy not just in name but also for day-to-day use and crucially – to implement.

Up and running in 1 month

Implementing a manufacturing ERP or MRP system can be a daunting task. Still, having prior experience with implementing manufacturing software, Paul decided to go at it himself. “I had a target to install MRPeasy and become ISO 9001 approved within 6 months,” he says. He used the wealth of comprehensive online resources readily available both on MRPeasy’s website as well as inside the client and managed to get the system up and running in just about 4 weeks.

MPW Precision’s plan to get the ISO approval within 6 months also came into fruition. Paul Watson: “After 6 months of using MRPeasy, 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.”

Commenting on the implementation phase, Paul says that a key strategy for manufacturers who are just setting up their operations, or still adjusting their production workflow is to rewrite the internal processes to match what is streamlined in MRPeasy: “This way there is no need to shoehorn the software to fit your system and implementation will be a breeze to get through,” he adds.

Workflow efficiency raised by 70%

Since MPW Precision opted for a day-one implementation, there were no measurable metrics on how MRPeasy affected efficiency after getting up and running. Comparing with the MRP solution that Paul and Maurice used in their previous venture, however – Priority Software ERP, MPW Precision can do things like taking an order and getting it to the shopfloor in around 25% of the time with MRPeasy. “There was approval and other stages involved and we had 40 employees instead of 8 but all-in-all, it’s around 70% more efficient.” says Watson.

Today, MPW Precision uses MRPeasy for pretty much everything, except for some ISO-specific QC processes that the company still handles via spreadsheets. They benefit from having business-critical information all in one place and accessible from the shop floor, office, or pretty much any internet-enabled external location. MRPeasy handles booking the goods and orders, the barcode system with printable and traceable labels, and everything in between. The owners have also received comments from customers who praise the speed at which the system makes documentation available to them. Meanwhile, the seamless QuickBooks integration ensures the accounts are well taken care of.

With end-to-end traceability in check and shop floor efficiency through the roof thanks to a flexible and affordable software partner in MRPeasy, MPW Precision is zeroing in on a fast growth path.