Sussex-based Focus SB (www.focus-sb.co.uk), which is a market leader in electrical wiring accessories, has received support from the Manufacturing Growth Programme (MGP) to implement a tailored MRP/ERP (materials requirement planning and enterprise resource planning system) at its factory in St Leonards-on-Sea.

The £200,000 investment has introduced a new way of working and given the company the platform to increase its turnover from £4.7 million in 2018 to £6 million in 2019.

One of the key elements of this expansion will be a major push into China, supplying electrical accessories such as switches and electrical sockets to the rapidly developing luxury market-place there.

Gary Stevens, Focus SB’s managing director, said: “We manufacture thousands of different products. We needed a way of understanding the demand for each item and how we can then use that information to better plan and control production.

"As a busy SME, it’s sometimes difficult to stand back and get a strategic view, and that’s why we turned to the MGP. It helped us to sharpen our thinking, which eventually led to a new way of working and the sizeable investment in a new MRP/ERP system.

"We now have full visibility of materials, stock, demand and any processes that may need to be improved.

“It was important that we made this change, as we have some very exciting opportunities to explore, not least maximising the fact that we are the only European electrical supplier to hold China Quality Certification for the manufacture of electrical accessories in the UK for export into the Chinese market.

“This means we can supply our luxury products direct, so we have invested in a showroom at the Jin Mau Tower — along with our Chinese distribution partner — to support a marketing drive to treble our sales in China to £1.5 million.”