Computer Hardware Manufacturer Doubles Revenue Since Implementing ERP

Computer hardware manufacturer Exacta Technologies needed software to support their growth while building increasingly complex products and processes. “Since we started using MRPeasy, we have achieved over 100% growth in revenue,” says Chris Landen, Chief Operations Officer.

Building custom hardware platforms and overclocked trading servers

Exacta Technologies Group is a computer hardware manufacturer from Bristol, UK. The business has two divisions: Exacta Technologies and Blackcore. 

Exacta Technologies focuses on building custom hardware platforms tailored to customers’ software requirements, while Blackcore specialises in high-performance, overclocked trading servers used in electronic trading environments.

According to Landen, the group’s strength lies in its ability to design, build, and deliver complete systems under one operational model – from engineering and manufacturing through to system integration and fulfilment.

“We effectively operate as a virtual factory for our customers,” Landen explains. “We take responsibility for hardware development, manufacturing, integration, and delivery so our customers can focus on their own products and markets. The goal is to give them something they can trust to be reliable, consistent, and representative of their brand.”

Another area where Exacta differentiates itself is its operational focus on reliability and process discipline. Rather than relying purely on reactive, on-site intervention, the company operates an advanced replacement support model where customers receive a replacement system when a fault occurs and return the defective unit for diagnosis and repair.

“Our priority is always to build systems that don’t fail in the first place,” Landen says. “Quality in design, assembly, and testing is what protects uptime long before support is ever needed. And when something does go wrong, our support model is designed around getting customers back to a known-good state as cleanly as possible.”

Self-implementing a new manufacturing ERP

Prior to 2019, Exacta used Sage to manage accounting and inventory. However, as production complexity increased, the lack of manufacturing-specific functionality became a barrier to further growth. After exploring several options, they chose MRPeasy on account of its robust functionality and its native integration with Xero.

“MRPeasy stood out because of its excellent balance of user-friendliness and depth of functionality expected from much larger systems,” Landen explains. “It gave us the tools we needed without the complexity or cost of much larger systems.”

Landen led the ERP implementation internally. Although initially daunting, the vast amount of support materials available on MRPeasy’s website enabled him to figure everything out on his own.

“Moving on to a new system was a challenge, due to the complexity of our operation,” he says. “We manage large numbers of bills of materials, including matrix BOMs, and deal with subcontracting and multi-stage production. But MRPeasy gave us the flexibility we needed”.

An affordable system that enables critical integrations

Five years after the implementation, Exacta Technologies has 66 users set up on MRPeasy’s Unlimited version. Even at this number of users on the most expensive package, Landen maintains that the software remains affordable.

“MRPeasy does a lot for what it costs,” he says. “There are systems that cost far more and don’t give you meaningfully better functionality.”

Exacta upgraded to the Unlimited package to access MRPeasy’s API and integrate with third-party tools such as Grafana, an advanced data analytics tool. With the integration, they can generate easily understandable visual graphs for monitoring KPI’s, forecasting, inventory, and purchases.

“We can visualise KPI’s, stock levels, purchasing activity, and forecasting much more clearly now,” he says. “The data is available in MRPeasy, but Grafana makes it easier to interpret and monitor.”

MRPeasy also provides out-of-the-box integrations with accounting apps such as Xero and QuickBooks Online. This has enabled Exacta to automatically feed material and production cost data from MRPeasy to Xero, making accounting and financial oversight much simpler.

Control over operations makes customers happy

According to Landen, some of MRPeasy’s biggest benefits are the structure it introduces into a business as well as the visibility it provides.

“We now have standardized processes and clear visibility across production, stock, and purchasing,” he says. “This allows us to coordinate more effectively and reduce manual errors and bottlenecks.”

MRPeasy’s BOM functionality is something Landen consistently highlights: in addition to simple single-level bills of materials, the system allows users to create and manage multi-level and configurable BOMs, and to keep track of BOM versions and revisions.

“Our product set is large and complex,” he states. “MRPeasy allows us to manage multi-level and configurable BOMs while controlling revisions and engineering changes properly.”

MRPeasy has also enabled Exacta to gain control over its inventory and purchasing, helping the company to avoid shortages and production stoppages.

“We have continuous visibility into what components we hold and what’s required next,” Landen maintains. “That’s been invaluable when dealing with long global lead times and constrained supply chains.”

Landen emphasizes that MRPeasy has substantially improved the company’s internal processes, which has consequently had a positive effect on their customer satisfaction.

“We’re able to quote faster and schedule more accurately,” Landen says. “That directly improves delivery reliability and customer communication.”

Doubling revenue and tripling headcount

Perhaps most importantly, MRPeasy has provided Exacta Technologies the operational backbone and focus that supports their rapid expansion and increasing order volumes.

“Since we started using MRPeasy, we have achieved over 100% growth in revenue,” Landen says. “And we have almost tripled our employee count from 25 to 70 without adding the same proportion of administrative overhead.”

While Exacta has grown at breakneck speed, the company has no plans to slow down. While the group is currently undergoing restructuring, its target revenue for last year was a whopping £20 million.

As for recommendations to other manufacturers looking to support their growth with digital tools, Landen is unambiguous: “I recommend MRPeasy. It delivers far more capability than you might expect for its size and price. But like any ERP, you need to implement it properly — take your time, structure your data well, and integrate it with your wider systems where possible.”

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