Bernard Laboratories, a contract manufacturer of industrial chemicals from Ohio, drastically reduces the time spent on administrative tasks thanks to MRP software.
A 75-year-old family business looking to modernise
Bernard Laboratories is a family-owned contract manufacturing and co-packing company from Cincinnati, Ohio that produces industrial chemicals such as lubricants and sealants.
Founded in 1948, its owners are the 3rd generation to manage the operation, running a global company with 22 full-time employees.
When Covid hit, Bernard Labs had to find a way for some of the employees to work from home. Their on-premise legacy ERP system became an obstacle in this, with the company having to rely on emails to collaborate remotely.
“At that point, we realized that we were going to need a cloud-based system that could be accessed from anywhere,” says Alece Piper, Vice President of Bernard Laboratories.
Manufacturing software easy enough to implement on one’s own
Piper started looking into cloud MRP/ERP solutions by reading reviews on software selection sites, finally moving forward with MRPeasy.
“What I like about MRPeasy is how easy it is,” she says. “It didn’t feel overwhelming and seemed easy enough to learn on my own. The affordability of the software played a role in the final choice as well.”
The priority during the implementation was purchasing. Previously, two buyers created purchase orders manually. There was no PO and no consistency in the purchasing process as a whole. The same applied to the quotes and invoices created by the sales department. MRPeasy quickly standardised these processes and documents.
“Now all of our orders and invoices look professional, which was not the case before,” Piper says.
Another module vital to the company is manufacturing order management. In addition, Bernard Laboratories adopted the accounting system QuickBooks, taking advantage of its native integration with MRPeasy.
“The QuickBooks integration is critical as it gives us confidence that the information flowing to finance is correct,” Piper says. “The combination acts as a system of checks and balances that we can trust.”
Administrative overhead reduced by two salaries.
Piper is happy with how everything is recorded and easily found in MRPeasy. In addition, the software processes and visualises valuable data that can be used to make informed business decisions.
“You can’t achieve this level of efficiency with spreadsheets,” she says.
With the new software, the company was also able to significantly reduce its administrative overhead. When three senior office employees retired, they were backfilled with just one. This was a large saving for a company their size.
“We have definitely grown thanks to MRPeasy,” Piper states. “We are now able to fulfill more orders, generate more revenue, and have an accurate overview of everything.”