'LIFTOFF' proves laser company is cut above the rest

Table of contents:

Under MAS' LiftOff Programme the manufacturer, which has a turnover of approximately £2.5m andS 47 staff, received eight days support over eight weeks to help it boost its business with the aerospace sector. MD, Neil Main, who purchased the business in 2003 in a management buyout, wanted to increase the firm's aerospace sector turnover. The company is currently supplying anything from watch to tractor parts, from prototype to volume production for a variety of industries such as medical, automotive and power generation

The LiftOff scheme enabled Micrometric to buy in the skills of a software consultancy to look at how their current system was helping them to manage and cost work flows. Neil Main explained: "Our problem with the software was that it had some capability, but it was limited. For example, we knew how much time we spent on each job, but we didn't know how much our materials were costing and therefore didn't know the true cost of a job and how much money we were making on it."

The software consultancy was asked to interrogate the software to evaluate what capability it was missing and what was due to lack of staff awareness and understanding.

Micrometric committed 20 days and 17 staff to working on the project. They examined not only how the software worked, but also what reports staff wanted to generate to help them manage the scheduling of individual jobs. The result is a software system that manages projects from planning and purchasing through to the invoicing and costing of any sub-contracting.

Neil said: "It's not the finished product by any means as we are still changing many of our data inputting and reporting processes, so I expect it to yield further cost savings this year. So far, we have dealt with 10% more jobs compared with the same period last year. I am delighted with our progress and would recommend MAS to any manufacturer; they employ experts who have been in my position who know how to make the impossible possible."

The LiftOff scheme was delivered by the Manufacturing Advisory Service in the East Midlands. It was funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), was heavily subsidised and was available to manufacturing companies, which were connected to the aerospace industry and based in Objective 2 areas of the region. It was able to provide help on a range of business areas including developing new workforce skills, introducing new business competencies and processes plus marketing support to look at new markets and diversification. The programme finished in March 2007.

MAS are also able to help small and medium-sized companies both inside and outside the aerospace sector to improve their competitiveness.