The WorkPlan ERP system from Vero Software (www.workplan.com) ensures that staff at Metra — a precision machining, tooling and mould company — are fully aware of workshop costs via the monitoring of about 2,000 separate projects annually. The company is using the system at its two French plants and one in Tunisia.

Technical director Daniel Lalaure says: “Many of our projects feature several orders, with up to six order lines, and WorkPlan brings several areas of expertise together in one ERP application. The company’s strength lies in
adhering to strict tooling lead times, to avoid interrupting customers’ supply chains. WorkPlan keeps us in full control, ensuring that we meet those demands.

“The ERP system manages sales activities and produces a quote for every request we get — and we’ve developed an Excel interface to help off-site technical sales staff prepare quotes quickly.

The file is sent to head office, where WorkPlan transforms it into a quote, significantly reducing response times; it also allows us to immediately determine whether we’re within budget or not.”

WorkPlan is also used by the engineering department to establish bills of material for purchasing, while the production planning department uses the system to establish the manufacturing processes, which are fed into the process library and standard bills of materials.

“The objective is to capitalise on the large amount of data available, in order not to have to re-assess or re-design a similar mould; we recover the manufacturing process which corresponds to a mould, and simply update it.

Quality Control also uses WorkPlan, in this case for managing rejected parts, as it integrates fully into the company’s Lean Manufacturing process. When a problem occurs, we analyse the cause and work with the operators to find solutions.

“We are now planning to integrate maintenance and metrology functions such as machine logs and calibration review dates into the system. I’m strongly in favour of total integration, because an SME’s overall performance depends greatly on the ability of its teams to work together, using common tools.”