Optima Products Chooses Epicor ERP to Support Growth Activities

Epicor Software Corporation, a global provider of industry specific enterprise software to promote business growth, today announced Optima Products Ltd. has chosen its next-generation ERP - Epicor, in order to improve visibility, aid customer demand and accelerate business growth.

Optima Products, a UK-based manufacturer with over 30 years’ expertise, offers the widest range of glazed and solid partitioning solutions in the UK. Working with architects and designers, these partitioning systems are used to create stunning, high-quality interior workspaces for businesses. Boasting a turnover of around £10million, the Bath-based organisation has experienced rapid growth over the past five years. As a result, the company has expanded its product offering and is now able to offer a diverse range of products, including more complex, bespoke partitioning systems.

This vast and rapid expansion meant that Optima’s existing manufacturing resource planning (MRP) solution was unable to cope with the increased demand and more varied product range. As a result, Optima decided to look for a new software platform which will cope with bespoke products and support the process of translating complex customer requirements into a set of comprehensive manufacturing instructions.

“Our previous software limited our ability to monitor how busy we were at any given moment. To address this, we took on more employees and increased our overheads just to sift through the information. The limitations of our MRP software hampered our growth and led to the company not working as effectively as it could,” said Christian Mabey, managing director at Optima Products Ltd.

He continued, 
“In 2015 we had a record production year, but it took a gargantuan effort from our employees 
to keep this momentum whilst being hindered by legacy software. 
We soon realised, if we were to continue to grow, 
we needed to re-appraise the foundation on which we operated, our MRP platform.”  

Following a product demonstration, which illustrated how well the software could work for Optima, 
it selected Epicor ERP as the solution to support its growth.

Stuart Hall, sales director for Epicor Software in the UK and Ireland said, “As we are seeing so often with well-established, successful businesses, Optima Products’ legacy software was inadvertently hindering the business from growing. Epicor ERP will provide Optima with better visibility at every stage of the manufacturing process, ensuring smooth delivery of each customer order, eliminating its large paper trail, and ensuring all necessary data is held within the system.”

Mabey concluded, “We want a software platform which 
will be much more dynamic with day-to-day interaction than our current solution 
and will help us continue the growth we have seen in recent years. 
We’re hoping to benefit from improved lead-in times to the manufacturing process
 and be far better equipped to maintain good quality levels during periods of high customer demand. 
We expect to also see accelerated growth in the long-term 
and are excited about what Epicor will provide our business going forward.”