Tridan Engineering Ltd finds that Aerospace and Defense is a demanding industry to operate in but having the right business system helps greatly.
Tridan Engineering Ltd was established in 1968 and provides a total outsource partnership and CNC machining service to companies in the UK, Europe and USA. Tridan Engineering can also offer a one-stop shop for all your casting requirements. This is done by their sister company Stone Foundries, part of the Stone Engineering Group.
Customise the system to meet your needs
Tridan Engineering implemented leading production control software, ProgressPlus, 5 years ago to manage their business operations. Operations Director, Michael Newman, said: “We supply cutting-edge technology to Aerospace and Defense primes such as Bombardier and Airbus. Aerospace is not easy to work in but ProgressPlus is fantastic at helping with traceability, delivery, certificate of conformity and more. Often we get compliments from customers on our documentation. This is down to the individual layouts customised for us by Berkeley Myles Solutions. ProgressPlus helps massively with Aerospace supply chain.”
Tridan Engineering was using an MRP system called Javelin. But they had to customise the software a lot to meet their needs. Michael Newman commented: “The downfall of it being heavily customised is we never got any updates and therefore the software was out of date.”
Michael Newman continued: “We had a remit to find a software system that we could bespoke to a point. We wanted to manipulate the software without affecting ongoing updates. We love what we can do with ProgressPlus – the manipulation of the layouts, the list maintenance is extremely good, we can add our own terms and change non-conformance sources.”
“Another benefit is the continuous communication between Berkeley Myles Solutions and Tridan Engineering to make sure we get the most of the system. Additionally, the system is leading edge and is continuously updated to stay ahead of time.”
Save time and admin with ProgressPlus
“We did have traceability in the previous system but you couldn’t drill down through the system like you do with ProgressPlus. The best way to describe the old system, it is like a filing cabinet. If you want to see a works order you have to go into the works order file but then you have to come out to go into the part number file and then you have to come out again to go into the sales order file. With ProgressPlus you can drill down and get into any part of the system without having to come out. This is fantastic. It saves time, saves admin and makes the system a lot easier to use. It is intuitive.”
During the selection of a new system, Tridan Engineering looked at a number of vendors. Michael Newman said: “what impressed us with ProgressPlus was the ease of use of the system and the delivery of the sales team. At the beginning, we had an online demonstration that was very good from the sales manager, Stevie O’Reilly. When we invited the final three vendors to meet us again it was nice to see Berkeley Myles Solutions showing commitment as Tony MacBride, the managing director, visited with Stevie. We also like the seminars, neither of the other companies offered this service. In the seminars, we are able to make suggestions to inform future development of the system. Berkeley Myles Solutions is much more proactive.”
Integrate AS9100 and ISO 14001 with your business system
Due to the industries Tridan Engineering supply into they are audited often and it is important for them to streamline and make audits as easy as possible. Michael Newman commented: “we managed to integrate AS 9100 & ISO 14001 into ProgressPlus. We had a remit and made a matrix of all the clauses from these standards and then cross-referenced all the software providers we use. ProgressPlus could tick the majority of the boxes to integrate with the standards. We had 200 manual forms to manage for the audit and we have now got this down to less than 50. Today, we don’t have a standalone non-conformance register as it is all in ProgressPlus. We integrated as much as possible to take the pain out of rewriting processes, saving is time and paperwork.”
Michael Newman said: “The auditors love ProgressPlus we have passed all our audits and the system always gets a special mention.”
Michael Newman concluded: “Operating in Aerospace you live or die by having a business system, ProgressPlus helps us succeed. The time saving is enormous – there are so many benefits – we have a seamless link with accounts, in any department in the business if you ask a question staff will open up ProgressPlus to get the answer as everything is stored there and the support team are excellent.”