Cruising Design International (CDI) is a California-based sailing equipment company that makes furlers—devices used in sailboats that simplify deploying sails. It sells primarily through dealers and chandleries, a network spanning around 100 companies throughout North America, also supplying spare parts directly to end customers.
Since its inception in the 1970s, CDI has changed hands several times. In late 2023, it was purchased by husband and wife Judy and David Blumhorst, who manage the entire operation. Judy, who has been selling CDI’s products since the 1990s, handles machining, while David focuses on assembly. Planning, purchasing, logistics, and sales are managed together.
The bottleneck: seasonality, long lead times, and zero foresight
CDI’s high season is between March and June, during which time, there is little room for errors. Each furler comprises about 50 parts arranged in multi-level BOMs, many with long lead times. A shortage of even a single component can halt production. That happened in their first season as owners. “We didn’t notice we needed one particular part and ordered it too late. That ended up costing us the sales season for that particular furler,” says David.
Their existing inventory solution could track stock on hand but offered no meaningful forecasting, lead time estimation, or production planning features. It failed to cascade demand through BOMs, didn’t include reorder alerts, and couldn’t anticipate shortages. David realized CDI needed true material requirements planning, not just inventory software.
Big-box ERP wasn’t an option
The next challenge was finding the right system. Many enterprise systems are priced and designed for much larger operations. “There is no way for tens of thousands of SMEs to go the SAP or similar route with six-figure implementation costs,” David explains.
CDI needed capable inventory tracking with forecasting capabilities, QuickBooks Online and ShipStation support, sales management, and shipping — all at a price a two-person shop could justify. But most candidates failed to balance features with affordability.
The Blumhorsts then came across MRPeasy, an SME-oriented app with solid user reviews and practical features that put it on the couple’s shortlist. “MRPeasy promised a price-to-capability ratio that seemed just right. It either included all our requirements or offered integrations for them,” remarks Judy.
Go-live in weeks, then refine workflows
While there was a learning curve, the couple was running sales orders, purchasing components, and managing production in MRPeasy mere weeks after implementation. “You need to learn how to think in a software, but once we understood MRPeasy’s logic, day-to-day management got easy,” explains David.
The Blumhorsts also engaged a consultant to adopt best practices and uncover more efficient ways to use the software’s features. The consulting spend was in the 5-10k ballpark, which the Blumhorsts consider money well spent.
Streamlined forecasting, order management, and fewer fires
With reliable forecasting and stock tracking, part shortages are no longer a threat and CDI can enter high season without worrying about availability. Judy remarks: “We’ve gotten out of the firefighting mode thanks to MRPeasy. It’s way more cost and time-efficient, and even my blood pressure is down!”
Now, orders get confirmed, inventory is booked, MOs are scheduled, and shipping flows through ShipStation, all largely automatically. David especially values the inventory levels chart in MRPeasy’s item list, enabling him to quickly trace and fix issues in the timeline. Instead of constantly wondering about material availability, the Blumhorsts can now concentrate on running and even enjoying their business. David says, “We have a tiny company with sophisticated material handling needs. MRPeasy meets those needs perfectly.“
Advice to SMEs: step away from the spreadsheets
The Blumhorsts offer straightforward advice to other SMEs: “Excel is horrible to try to run a business with. It’s flexible but fragile. You can set up sophisticated formulas and even do some light programming on it, but if you don’t protect it right, the whole thing is way too easy to break.”
Today, David can project demand eight to twelve months out, and if something’s off, he assumes it’s his process—not the system. “That’s how much trust we’re placing in MRPeasy. It gives us the visibility and traceability that Excel or any other software in this price range simply couldn’t. There is no way the two of us could run this size of company without MRPeasy.”
For more information, visit www.MRPeasy.com.
