Bracknell-based MESTEC, a UK technology specialist, has built on a record year by securing a trio of high-profile contracts and a prestigious global award. The company, which has seen sales grow by over 50% since its acquisition by manufacturing software specailist Eyelit Inc, will use its pioneering cloud-based Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) solution to create smarter factories for a customer involved in supercar customisation, a firm involved in advanced engineering, and a manufacturer of golf equipment.

MESTEC will work with the global brands to rapidly deploy its technology that promises to improve performance across 80-pus key manufacturing KPIs (key performance indicators) in a bid to improve labour productivity, overall equipment effectiveness, quality, and compliance.

It comes at an exciting time for the company which was named as the Oracle Global Leaders’ ISV of the Year at a prestigious awards ceremony held recently in Las Vegas as part of Oracle CloudWorld. This is a major achievement for MESTEC and saw it recognised globally as a technology leader competing against 20 of the world’s leading software providers.

MESTEC CEO Mark Carleton said: “There is a definite feeling that we have gone past the early-adopter stage with digital manufacturing and that it is becoming widely accepted as an effective means of saving costs and increasing performance. Our recent three ‘wins’ are across three very different sectors, yet all share the same desire to look at how they modernise their factories through real-time data collection and analysis. This is just the start when we look at the pipeline of new opportunities we currently have — it has never been bigger.”

Delivering improved performance
He added: “The MESTEC team will be energised by the major Oracle Award we achieved, which recognised the progress we are making in helping customers reimagine software as fast to deploy, easy to integrate and a proven tool to delivering improved performance. We have fully leveraged our SaaS architecture to enable customers to go live in just days rather than the traditional multi-month, complicated and expensive deployment process for traditional manufacturing software solutions. It has been rewarding to see Oracle NetSuite customers realise immediate integration of manufacturing data with financial and operational data and we look forward to deepening our partnership.”

Together with its Eyelit’s advanced manufacturing software, the two platforms are seeing especially strong demand in a variety of industry sectors including semiconductor, automotive, medtech, aerospace, defence, battery, and solar.

The technology supports all key manufacturing workflows, including asset management, factory and equipment integration, automation, manufacturing execution (MES), recipe management, quality management, planning, scheduling, and business process management. The open and flexible architecture of the platforms enables seamless integration with Oracle NetSuite and other mission-critical enterprise applications.

Mr Carleton concluded: “We have always been one of the first adopters of new technology, using it to lower barriers to adoption and bring digitalisation into the traditionally conservative manufacturing sector. Being part of Oracle’s Global Leaders Group, alongside 20 other business specialists, is a fantastic learning resource and a great way to share best practice to develop our own technology.”

MESTEC has created more than 15 new jobs as a result of the recent growth, with the workforce now totalling 35, and plans in place to grow this figure again over the next 12 months. One of the key drivers for future expansion will come through Eyelit Inc’s US footprint and its ability to deliver new opportunities in North America.