Gifts producer bundles up productivity with MRP software

Welsh toiletry and gift manufacturer Myddfai Trading Company uses software to integrate the business and improve production efficiency.

Myddfai Trading Company is a fast-growing for-profit social enterprise founded 12 years ago in Wales. Its business model combines manufacturing luxury toiletries and giftsets with socially responsible staffing practices, providing working experience and opportunities for at-risk people from the local community, and selling direct-to-consumer as well as wholesale to B&Bs, gift shops, hotels, etc.

Inventory management gone awry pushed a move towards manufacturing software

Starting out small, Myddfai initially used a paper-based inventory and production management system, later implementing WooCommerce to handle CRM and sales. As volumes grew and the company’s product range expanded, however, the manufacturing process started getting increasingly complex.

As a result, the system’s limitations became apparent, with a key issue being insufficient stock control. “At one point, we had so many partially completed orders that it just became unmanageable,” explained Myddfai’s website manager, Paul Long. This led to a growing backlist of incomplete orders and lagging delivery lead times, as well as issues with both overstocking and stockouts.

A capable MRP system addressed the scaling challenges

Initially, the company chose a manufacturing and inventory management software platform to digitise its bills of materials and routings and to automate several parts of its production process. However, the chosen system did not have the kitting/bundling functionality that the company needed.

Paul then found MRPeasy, which provided a capable bundling option while meeting the company’s number one prerequisite: a built-in WooCommerce integration together with improved order management and purchasing.

Productivity on the rise after overcoming scaling hurdles

After successfully importing the bills of materials and production routings, the MRPeasy implementation went quite fast, and Paul was able to manage it solo.

The rest of Myddfai’s staff have responded very well to the new software. “MRPeasy tells us what our requirements are and when we create the manufacturing orders, we don’t have to go and tell the manufacturing staff anything, they can simply pull the information from MRPeasy. At the same time, we’re getting flags for stock statuses and can replenish purchases. So, it’s more control,” Paul explains.

Accounting is also very pleased with the new system and Myddfai can report stock value a lot easier than before. Stock taking has been hugely simplified as MRPeasy reports stock value in real-time. “We’ll do a limited physical stock take, but all in all it’s largely automated now,” Paul adds

Thanks to MRPeasy, Myddfai is enjoying a much smoother overall manufacturing process allowing it to focus on growing its clientele and brand.

MRPeasy is a manufacturing ERP software for small businesses with 10-200 employees. MRPeasy users report a 54% average improvement in the overall performance of their company and a 42% increase in on-time deliveries. More info and a free trial are available at https://www.mrpeasy.com/.