MCD Engineering
MCD Engineering is a subcontract engineering business based in Dungannon, Northern Ireland, that specialises in high quality fabrication and finishing services to industrial, agricultural, commercial, and private customers. From one-off bespoke pieces to high-volume production parts, MCD prides itself on meeting and exceeding customer expectations at every opportunity.
In 2008 the company started using Intact Vline to run their business operations. Over time they expanded its use to cover more areas of the business and created a series of custom reports. Most recently they upgraded to Intact Xline for a more comprehensive business management platform on the latest technologies.
Moving away from Sage Accounts
For many years the company’s long-serving accountant used Sage alongside Vline to submit their VAT and tax returns, which involved a significant amount of time spent on double data entry. Going forward, MCD Engineering’s Buyer, Michelle Vincent, will be managing all the company’s accounting processes and she is excited to be moving everything into Intact Xline.“I prefer Intact Xline to Sage, it’s far more user friendly. Once you learn how to do something in accounts, like adding a sales or purchase order, it’s basically the same process the whole way across the system,” said Michelle. “There's also a cost saving to be had – with Xline we only need one piece of software to run everything.”
Traceability – a key benefit for MCD Engineering
The biggest benefit of Intact software, according to Tony Armstrong, Manager at MCD, is the traceability it provides. For example, when a sales order is printed off, a label is also printed for each product, displaying important information such as the associated purchase order number, sales order number, product details, quantity, and finish. These labels accompany products throughout the entire production process to ensure all products are clearly identified and traceable.
Alongside these tracking labels, MCD Engineering also use Xline to create work schedule reports that define the schedule for each workshop. These reports are updated as each production process is complete. “Twice a week, I run a report that tells me the status of each item in production,” said Tony.
“This report is really important because it gives us full visibility of what’s happening in the workshops and lets us provide regular updates to our customers. Our biggest customer comes into the office twice a week to find out where we are with their orders, and we can always tell them exactly what they need to know.”
Intact Xline has also simplified the quotation process by allowing the company to track quote revisions. With just a click, they can access the complete history of revisions, including any changes to the product, quantity or pricing and the reasons behind them. This comprehensive audit trail gives them total transparency throughout the quotation process.
Easy to teach, easy to use
There are currently 5 members of staff that have been trained to use the software, and Tony is very happy with how easy it is to train new users. “It’s really easy to teach the basics of the system. We know we can train people on it very quickly and that they'll be able to go off and use their part of it straightway. It’s just really easy to use - anybody can run a report, and anybody can check a product, and that’s really appealing to us.”
An end-to-end solution for all areas of the business
Having a fully integrated, end-to-end system is also proving very beneficial to the company. “While Michelle is accounts-based and I’m more operational, we can still easily delve into each other’s areas and help each other out if we need to,” said Tony. “The way Intact Xline is integrated across all areas of the business, I don't think we could find another software that would be capable of that.”“Having Intact Xline is like having another member of staff.” - Michelle
What the future holds for MCD Engineering
Over the years, the team at MCD Engineering have done a fantastic job moving away from using traditional paperwork methods and automating more and more manual processes via their Intact system, but they’re not stopping there! Michelle and Tony still have lots of plans to improve things even more, including: - Automating how Work Schedule Reports are updated, by introducing screens on the shop floor that staff can use to automatically update Xline once they’ve finished working on a job.
- Expanding their reporting dashboards to include weekly capacity graphs that focus on capacity hours.
- Removing all the paperwork used in the delivery process, by providing their drivers with handheld devices that collect and automatically upload proof of delivery into Xline.
After Intact Xline
Michelle believes that their business simply couldn’t function without their Intact system: “The first thing we do in the morning is to check Intact to see what’s going on in the business. It’s all there, all the information you need at your fingertips. We’d be completely and utterly lost without it; we just couldn't function.”
And Tony agrees: “The running of our whole business is based around our Intact software - from ordering to accounting to production reports, everything! If we didn't have it, we’d be scuppered because Intact Xline is the heartbeat of this office.”
