Modern methods fulfilled with modular ERP

There are few engineering companies today that can boast a heritage as rich as Bacon Engineering. Next year it celebrates 125 years in business with a fifth-generation Bacon family member at the helm, David Bacon, along with operations director Darren Glew.

The company’s story is one of twists and turns, evolving from a trawler operator in the heyday of the Grimsby fishing industry, into the modern and progressive engineering company that today has established itself as a trusted partner across an array of sectors, including chemical, construction, food, marine, and energy/renewables, to name just a few.

In the past seven years the business has been through a significant period of modernisation, moving to new larger premises on the Humberside Industrial Estate and replacing most of its old machinery with state-of-the-art CNC equipment, growing a highly capable fabrication team with a range of codings, while diversifying into drone and laser scanning technology.

In June 2023, Bacon Engineering implemented MIE Trak Pro ERP software believing this would take it to the next level and further, leaving behind the final administrative remnants of its old-fashioned family-run business structure.

After identifying the need for ERP software in today's competitive manufacturing industry, the company began a period of market research, searching both online and speaking with industry peers to produce a shortlist of four providers. All were then demoed and tested against their specific requirements and MIE Trak Pro was selected as being the most comprehensive.

“The deciding factor for us was that a trusted partner of ours already uses MIE Trak Pro so we were able to really pick their brains on the system and their experiences, giving us confidence that MIE Trak Pro claims met its abilities,” comments managing director David Bacon.

After selecting MIE Trak Pro as its ERP provider, Bacon next looked at the implementation process. David Bacon explains how it approached this next stage.  

“The biggest challenge we faced was to create the headspace within the business to learn and understand the system,” he recalls. “This is difficult within a small business when resources are lean but ultimately we had to remember that MIE Trak was acquired to improve our efficiencies and processes, so we began appointing super users and focused on rolling the system out, one team at a time.

“The expertise of the MIE Solutions team has played a crucial role in our success. We have felt supported every step of the way and I recommend the team for their responsiveness to our needs.”

MIE Trak Pro is a complete modular software package designed specifically for the sheetmetal and engineering industry, managing everything from initial customer inquiries through to invoice and shipping and everything in between. The biggest advantage for Bacon Engineering since installation is the software's advanced analytics and data collection abilities.

“This is a massive step forward for us, as it now allows us to make evidence-based decisions across a far broader range of business functions that we couldn't have done previously. We now have a single system across the entire business containing our quoting and performance data which is proving to be a game changer,” Mr Bacon comments.

The next big step for the company is to fully utilise the scheduling module of MIE Trak Pro – a process Mr Bacon is looking forward to as the business strives to implement even greater efficiencies.

Currently Bacon Engineering’s period of modernisation is being bolstered with the incorporation of MIE Trak Pro into daily operations. With a whole host of modules available for the company to grow into and with the continued support from the MIE team, the sky’s the limit for this progressive engineering business.

MIE Solutions
www.mie-solutions.co.uk