Poweronics is a power electronics company based in St. Neots, England, dedicated to designing and manufacturing gate drivers used in power conversion systems. Their flagship products enable efficient and reliable control of IGBTs (Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistors) and Silicon Carbide MOSFETs, critical components in power converters for modern high-power and high-availability applications.
Early on, Poweronics made the strategic decision to in-source the manufacturing of some of their products. moving to a hybrid approach of manufacturing in-house and subcontracting. The team felt, however, that this significant shift needed to be supported by a manufacturing management software.
“Our product portfolio uses around 1200 components that need to be controlled,” says Colin Hart, Managing Director. “As we were previously not fully exposed to the manufacturing side, this was quite daunting at first.”
Colin Hart, Poweronics Managing DirectorMRPeasy
The company went through a lot of trouble initially implementing a system that had good reviews and customer case studies. However, a number of shortcomings in key areas such as support and core product knowledge made the onboarding process with them very challenging.
New system took 3 hours to set up
The team then started looking for a new system that would integrate with their accounting software, Xero. MRPeasy was one of the products identified. According to Colin, the system's workflow and suitability for a small team took first priority in the selection.
“We didn’t need to set up the shiniest MRP system; rather, we needed something that was practical and let the business operate smoothly.”
Apart from core functionality like inventory management and manufacturing orders, Colin needed to make sure that the software made the company look presentable and reliable from the customer’s point of view, so quotations and invoices needed to be well presented and consistent.
“I looked at the sales orders and how they are presented to the customer, how easy quoting was,” he says. “Ultimately, business is all about helping a customer but also making the commercial activities as frictionless as possible.
Poweronics started a free trial in August 2023 and wanted to go live in only a month due to their accounting year ending in September.
“The implementation was very straightforward. Setting up MRPeasy only took me about three hours,” Colin says. “That’s 1500 SKU lines, all the BOMs, existing sales orders, purchase orders, manufacturing orders, everything!”
No more shortages, quick quoting, and less confusion
After the implementation, Poweronics has achieved near-total inventory control. This has resulted in full confidence in what the system says the company can build with the available components. In addition, when an order comes in, the team can instantly see what extra materials and components must be procured to build a product.
“We’ve never had a shortage after adopting MRPeasy,” Colin says. “All the components that the software says are in the warehouse—are in the warehouse. It seems obvious and straightforward, but with inventory discrepancies, production can be delayed very quickly.”
The company's customer experience has also improved significantly, especially regarding quoting. According to Colin, responding to quote requests has become much quicker thanks to the system’s ability to pull information from across the entire operation.
“Now, our customer experience is fantastic; we can get quotes out very quickly,” he says.
Another great benefit he appreciates is how the manufacturing orders within MRPeasy help production workers understand what needs to be built.
“Also, my accounting team loves MRPeasy because it feeds numbers straight into our accounting system,” he says.
Colin states that the lack of things going wrong is probably the best measure of the benefits MRPeasy has brought into the company. While challenges still occur, as in any business, areas of the company that are managed using MRPeasy work like a well-oiled machine.
“I’d definitely say MRPeasy is a strong contender for any business looking at MRP or manufacturing ERP software,” he concludes.
For more information, visit https://www.mrpeasy.com/.
