This Tool Is Critical For Profitability, says Small Ohio Manufacturer

After having spent 7 years implementing an ERP system at a previous company, Rob Wynn got Forge Fire & Co.’s new system up and running in just 2 months, gaining control over orders, production, and margins. “If you care about your bottom line, a tool like this is critical,” he says. 

Providing firefighters with realistic training environments

Forge Fire & Co. is a fire training safety equipment manufacturer from Bucyrus, Ohio. The company specializes in building modular structures that provide firefighters with realistic environments for live fire training. 

The company was founded in 2021 by seasoned firefighter Todd Shepherd and his wife Carie. During his decades of working in the fire industry, Todd got to experience the lack of good training tools and realized there was a serious need for realistic training solutions that simulated real fire situations. He started building various props in his garage and the business quickly took off. By 2023, it had grown to a size where Todd decided to step away from the fire service and started managing the business full-time. Today, Forge Fire & Co. employs around 50 people, many of whom are former firefighters, and sells its products in the US and internationally.

In late 2024, the company expanded and moved into its first dedicated production facility, bringing all of its manufacturing in-house. To help manage the ever-increasing volumes, Todd and Carie brought in Director of Operations Rob Wynn, who had filled the same role at one of their previous suppliers. Rob knew that a serious manufacturing company should not operate without an ERP system and made it his primary task to implement one as soon as possible.

“At that point, the company was already sizable and there was no way we could have continued with manual methods,” Rob maintains. “We needed software that could help us manage the production workflows and inventory.”

Finding a dream ERP after nightmarish experiences

With 20 years of experience using ERP and MRP systems in previous jobs, including a 7-year migration from Epicor to NetSuite at a billion-dollar publicly traded company, Rob was hopeful he would find a better solution for Forge Fire & Co. He spent around two months researching software options, watching videos, reviewing websites, and comparing features. After narrowing the choices down to two solutions, he selected MRPeasy for its functionality, pricing, and ease of use. 

“I’ve used some high-level ERP systems and while I appreciate their sophistication, they are a nightmare to learn, implement, and maintain,” Rob says. “What stood out to me about MRPeasy was how quickly we could get it up and running.”

Rob also liked that MRPeasy’s user-friendliness did not come at the expense of power and scalability. As the company was starting almost completely from scratch, they needed a system that could support their immediate needs and scale as the business grew.

“For us, MRPeasy covers the core requirements for lean, efficient manufacturing in a simple, easy-to-use system,” he says. “Just as importantly, it’s cloud-based, so we didn’t have to deal with hosting a local database and could easily support remote workers.” 

From zero to fully operational in just 2 months

Rob started implementing the new system on his own at the end of January 2025, and the company went live with it already in March. According to him, the process was very quick and easy, supported by the library of materials and demo videos MRPeasy has available online.

“It was just me, one person, trying to get the data in place to support a multi-million-dollar operation,” he says. “And I didn’t dedicate those full two months solely to implementing MRPeasy – I was handling plenty of other responsibilities too. So, going from absolutely nothing to fully operational in just two months was exceptional.”

Ease of use was just as important after go-live. While office staff adapted quickly, Rob was especially focused on making sure shop floor employees would be comfortable with the system. Forge Fire & Co. uses MRPeasy’s web kiosk interface to check production documents and track production time across departments, including CNC, welding, painting, fabrication, and assembly. 

“It took me 15 minutes to train employees how to use the shop floor interface,” Rob says.

The only real learning curve was discovering the full extent of MRPeasy’s capabilities over time. As the team became more familiar with the system, they went back and refined some workflows to take better advantage of features like multi-level BOMs and MOs, both of which helped make production planning even more efficient.

“Those features are a thing of beauty,” he says. “I’ve never experienced this kind of functionality being so streamlined in an MRP or ERP system.”

Gaining control over orders, production, and margins

After more than a year of running their operation on MRPeasy, Forge Fire & Co. is seeing great improvements in efficiency, visibility, and flexibility. For one, MRPeasy makes it easy to keep production aligned with engineering changes.

“What I love most about MRPeasy is its dynamic nature,” Rob says. “If the engineering department updates a bill of materials, MRPeasy will ask if we want to update the related manufacturing orders too, keeping everyone on the same page. I’m not used to that kind of flexibility in ERP systems.”

Rob also highlights the system’s visibility into performance metrics and its reliable QuickBooks Online integration. With no sync issues and easy access to efficiency data on manufacturing orders, the team can compare actual production performance against planned routing times and costs. That gives Forge Fire & Co. clearer insight into where processes can be improved and whether margins are staying on track.

“Our QuickBooks integration has worked with zero hiccups, and the efficiency data is incredibly valuable,” Rob says. “I can quickly see how jobs actually performed against our planned costs and times, which helps us make sure our costing is accurate and margins are where they need to be.”

Accurate order lead times and full product traceability

The new system has also had a positive effect on Forge Fire & Co.’s customer relationships. With a very high order volume, their fulfillment times can easily stretch beyond a year, so MRPeasy enables the team to reliably schedule orders in the long term, providing customers with accurate lead times and setting realistic expectations.

“Without having a solid scheduling tool like MRPeasy, it would be impossible for us to give dependable production time estimates for our customers,” Rob says.

The system also helps the company quickly investigate any quality-related questions. By opening a past manufacturing order, Rob can immediately see which materials were consumed, who worked on the product, and how much time was logged manufacturing it.

“That traceability and quick insights are super useful for any sort of QA issues that may arise,” he says.

Manufacturers lose money without a proper system

For Rob, the idea of running a growing manufacturing company on spreadsheets is difficult to justify. While he understands why some smaller businesses hesitate to adopt an ERP or MRP system, he believes many are held back by outdated assumptions shaped by horror stories from large enterprise implementations.

“To me, it’s an absolute no-brainer,” he says. “The potential for user error in Excel sheets is just unthinkable.”

In his view, the real risk is not adopting a system at all. Without proper data, visibility, and costing, manufacturers end up making decisions with too little control over their operations and margins. As a result, companies end up losing substantially more money by not implementing a system than they would spend on putting one in place.

“Any time you can improve margins without raising prices by making production more efficient, that’s a major win,” he states. “If you care about your bottom line, a tool like MRPeasy is critical.” 

After years of dealing with large, complex ERP platforms, Rob says MRPeasy has been a refreshing contrast.

“With all the frustrations I’ve experienced with other systems, MRPeasy just makes my life so much easier,” he says. “I could never go back to an ERP system like SAP, NetSuite, or Epicor after using MRPeasy.”

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