Success Story: Britannia 2000 Targets Better Traceability with MRP Software

UK aerospace & defense manufacturer Britannia 2000 Holdings (B2KH) has utilized cloud solutions in every aspect of its business since its founding. Traceability is achieved in the company with the help of MRPeasy. “I set it up myself and it was that easy,” Director Ralph Jones states.

About Britannia 2000

Britannia 2000 Holdings is a hi-tech manufacturer providing the aerospace & defense industry with helicopter mission computers, displays, airborne video recorders, video downlinks and receivers – essential devices for surveillance activities and accurate targeting. A cloud-based micro-company founded in 2017, Britannia 2000 has no employees on payroll and mostly uses subcontractors to build their subassemblies. Final assembly and test is carried out in-house, within its ISO9001:2015 compliant procedures.

Dissatisfaction with previous MRP system

Ralph Jones, the Director of B2KH, is no stranger to software and during the founding of the company, he made the decision to have a total cloud-based strategy when it came to managing the business.

In his previous company, he purchased an MRP system called ProgressPlus that had a price tag of around £12,000, but never got the software properly implemented. “I employed a number of project managers and outside consultants, but every one of them failed,” he states.

In the newly founded company, he needed software that would enable them to perform quality inspections and material authorization during the manufacturing process as well as incoming goods and subassembly inspection for quality assurance. After revisiting the MRP marketplace, Ralph settled on MRPeasy.

MRPeasy provides functionality without the complexity

Even though MRPeasy offered advanced functionality, Ralph found it incredibly easy to use while trialing the software. “I set it up myself and it was that easy,” he recalls. “Some things have taken time to figure out, but the online help people have been really quick to respond to any issues.”

As for the functionality of the software, MRPeasy leaves companies room to grow. Various features could be switched on as the need arises and so businesses with up to 250 employees would generally find what they need in MRPeasy.

“We don’t use all the functionality just because we don’t need to,” says Ralph. “However, a lot of the functionality is essential in our manufacturing process – stock lot tracking, purchase orders, Goods In, QA inspections, Release from QA, RMAs, bills of materials, shipping, and routings.  The fact that MRPeasy will seamlessly integrate with our accounting software will be vital as we continue to grow.”

Like other companies in the aerospace and defense industry, Britannia 2000 needs to conform to traceability standards, which was one of the main reasons for choosing MRPeasy.

“With the software, I’m able to track components and achieve traceability throughout the order chain,” Ralph says. “So, if we have a bad batch, we can find out which MOs and POs they were part of. Everything we manufacture is serial numbered and MRPeasy helps us track these as well.”

Managing the huge bills of materials of B2KH was also a requirement that MRPeasy easily filled. “It’s 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,” Ralph says.

The company also uses MRPeasy as a procurement and inventory management software. “With MRPeasy, we roughly know if we’ve got components in stock – roughly is because some stock is yet to be entered into the MRP,” Ralph conceded. “MRPeasy is also extremely good in terms of telling us the goods received in a batch. For our more flight-critical apps we need to use the correct GRN for each component and MRPeasy provides us this information from the picking list on the BOM when items are allocated via the ‘Book Part’ feature.”

Software helped continue operations during the pandemic

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and social distancing requirements were implemented, MRPeasy helped B2KH continue operating. “The last few years, MRPeasy has been central to the way we work. We can look at BOMs remotely, it provides POs for missing parts, and sends orders via email, plus we can process Goods Inwards. We can do all of the admin without needing to go to the office. We would not have been able to operate without MRPeasy,” Ralph says.

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