Giving MNB Precision the right tools for the job

Background

Established over 30 years ago, MNB Precision is a medium sized company specialising in world-class CNC Precision Engineering. Comprising of three generations of the Benton family, our core business is the production of precision engineered components, predominantly providing CNC Precision Engineering Services to the Oil & Gas Industry. Coventry-based MNB Precision was established in 1980 and has grown to become a medium-sized company, employing around 85 people. Its annual turnover currently stands at £9million and growth forecasts are strong.

A leader in CNC precision engineering, the sub-contract machine shop supplies high complexity, high-value metal parts to the engineering, oil and gas, automotive, nuclear, marine and defence industries – and it counts global firms such as Mercedes Benz, Honda and Rolls-Royce among its clients.

Working with a range of materials, like steel, exotic metals, plastics and nylon, specialist engineers and machinists make an extensive list of products that includes MWD/LWD collars, magnetic cleaning tools and reaming tools.

MNB Precision is one of Access Group’s longest standing customers and was among the first to deploy FactoryMaster MRP in the 1990s. Over the years, it has seen the software develop in line with its own business.

Today, Access FactoryMaster MRP plays a central role in:

• Supporting production
• Managing purchasing and stocking
• Ensuring quality, compliance and health and safety.

 

Access FactoryMaster MRP in action

Managing director and co-owner Luke Benton is determined to get the most out of Access FactoryMaster MRP, using it for everything from quote to cash: prospect and customer maintenance, purchasing, QA, shopfloor data capture, bills of materials, works orders,  customer invoices.

Over the years, MNB Precision has seen the software adapt to meet the changing demands of businesses, something that has enabled it to speed up many everyday processes and save money by taking out much of the ‘grunt work’.

Taking one example, the team uses the MRP module to simplify its supplier base, consolidate purchases and reduce bottlenecks to improve operational efficiency.

This task is made easier because all relevant production documents are stored on the system, so they are automatically added to the purchase order when materials are bought. All approved products and services are listed to ensure traceability, compliance and QA, while also reducing the time it takes to raise an order.

 

Reporting

All of the company’s KPIs are set within Access FactoryMaster MRP, and Luke sets real-time parameters for sales and quality in easy-to-view graphs, which are displayed at a specific day, time or month. It’s clear that MNB Precision has come a long way from the days when documents were managed manually.  

Luke can also access key company data through automated reports, for example, what had been booked in and whether staff have arrived on time, as he explains here:

“Access FactoryMaster MRP is a central hub for all of our data. It’s the place where we make all the management and business decisions. It needs to be correct, so the correct decision can be made. We use every part of the system to make our lives easier and traceability a lot more detailed.”

By automating many of its reports, the team has seen enormous time-saving benefits – which Luke estimates has saved the company more than £100,000.

Drilling down to the detail, he added:

“I have reports that tell me what parts were released yesterday from purchase orders, and another to tell me what has been delivered to customers – anything you can think of. If the part doesn’t come in, there’s a colour-coded report on the system depending on its status. I can see immediately if something was meant to be due that day but isn’t here. This wouldn’t have been possible without all the data being so readily available.”

 

Speed and traceability

There’s no doubt that Access FactoryMaster MRP has significantly speeded up once labour-intensive tasks like generating quotes for customers and recording where each part came from.

Before that, all information – such as time and attendance – was manually imputed, which proved to be an enormous time burden. Using five shop floor data capture points, run within FactoryMaster MRP, workers now simply swipe on to log their hours, enabling managers to check logged versus allocated time.

Concluding, Luke said:

“Everything is at your fingertips, that’s the beauty of FactoryMaster. You can find whatever you need very quickly.

“I know the system inside-and-out now, and I have recommended it to my colleagues in the industry. Compared to some of the bigger providers, its usability is great: you can look at a screen, and know how to go forwards and backwards. Other systems are too convoluted, whereas FactoryMaster is built on the premise that it’s simple to use and it succeeds in that.”

 

Working with Access

As mentioned above, Luke has no hesitation about recommending Access Group to others – not least because the two businesses share similar growth ambitions:

“You want to be with the ‘in crowd’ if that makes sense, you want to be with people who are also growing. The team at Access Group want to grow the business, and they go out of their way to help their customers.”