As it expanded the company realised it needed to upgrade its MRP system for production and accounts to support the growing demands of the business. Burcas quality manager Martyn Fearn said the investment was crucial in order for the business to stay ahead of its competitors.

We looked at several systems but ProgressPlus was the obvious choice due to its flexibility, robustness and ease of use.

Developed by Glasgow-based IT specialist Berkeley Myles in 2001, ProgressPlus helps manufacturing organisations streamline, automate and integrate the management and control of shop-floor production and administrative processes. It now has more than 1200 concurrent users throughout the UK and Ireland.

At Burcas the system has been deployed throughout various divisions of the company, covering all aspects of process control including sales, manufacturing, stock control, despatch, and invoicing.

Mr Fearn believes ProgressPlus has enabled the business to maintain the highest standards of service and increase its competitiveness in an increasingly tough marketplace.He also insists that the system has been crucial in helping the business comply with the aerospace AS/EN 9100 quality standard.

"ProgressPlus has directly helped us improve as a business by giving us full traceability throughout the life-cycle of the production process", he said.

"The system has increased our operational efficiency and has allowed us to grow our turnover by making us more streamlined, efficient and fully-compliant with the AS/EN 9100 standard."

He adds that ProgressPlus has also allowed Burcas to focus on sustained customer satisfaction.

"Our quality systems have been enhanced using the reporting functions in ProgressPlus and delivery performance can be accessed quickly enabling us to ensure we always deliver outstanding levels of customer service."

Another part of the business which has benefited from ProgressPlus is Inventory Management, based on the principle of KANBAN. ProgressPlus has enabled the company to deliver exceptional levels of service to their Inventory Management customers and exploit new business opportunities. The next development stage for the business will involve applying discussed KANBAN principles to the defence sector.