1. What is your role at Fitfactory?
Jason Pritchard, I have recently joined Fitfactory as Chief Commercial Officer. My role is to commercialise the products by making them more relatable and easily accessible to manufacturing
businesses whilst ensuring our customers get the most value from the products. There’s an inspiring breadth of technology that we have on offer that can help companies streamline
their operations, go paperless on their shop floor, analyse performance in real-time and even sharecritical information with customers and suppliers. But, that can be a lot for engineering companies to
take on at once, so we’re working to help manufacturers realise the benefits that digital technology like ours can provide.
2. What does Fitfactory do?
Fitfactory provides technology to enable manufacturers to SCALE their business. We aim to bridge the gap between engineering/manufacturing and technology to make digitalisation achievable for all.
Many companies know they need to adopt digital technology but don’t know where to start. So, we help them identify their goals, build a roadmap to help them achieve them, and provide technology
for every step of their journey. We’re essentially a one-stop-shop for digital technology!
Everything flows through our SCALE methodology:
– Streamline manufacturing operations to improve productivity.
– Connect your factory across your people, plant, products, processes & supply chain partners
to automate data capture.
– Analyse real-time data to generate actionable insights, predict future what-if scenarios &
optimise performance.
– Level-up customer service through transparency, collaborative workflows & proactive
account management.
– Extend your supply chain ecosystem to increase resilience, identify new global customers &
compete as extended enterprises.
3. What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Probably Coffee! No, but to be honest, I love coming to the office and working with the fantastic team we have here. It’s great to work with such a high calibre of people that are proactive, put the
customer first and do everything they can to support them. One of our values in the company is to Aim for Perfect – this means thinking about “what would the
perfect implementation be?”, “what would the perfect tool for our customers be?”, “what would the perfect support call be?” and we do this right across the business. It’s great to work in an
environment where the team put this into action every day for our customers.
4. What makes Fitfactory different?
It’s easy to go out and find an ERP-MRP provider or business analytics company. Some may bepromising to be the best or the most efficient – and that might be true – but, for every different
company you purchase a system from, you often have to use spreadsheets or a manual process inbetween. And that often negates the benefit or introduces additional cost into the process.
Our USP is that we are a one-stop shop where engineering and manufacturing companies can select tailored modules that enable business improvement by plugging the gaps they need to fill – within
their existing systems – in the most cost-effective way. We cover everything from receiving an RFQ to scheduling jobs, completing audits, and analysing supplier performance. And everything is
integrated and talks to each other seamlessly. And, with our senior team’s experience of working in and running manufacturing companies, we support the whole journey.
5. What is the business’ greatest strength?
We take a customer-first approach to everything we do, and we have over 25 years of experience in delivering manufacturing software for SMEs. So, we understand the market intimately and use that
knowledge to continuously improve the products and services we provide. A great example of this is our implementation speeds. An average MRP implementation can take 6-
months to 2 years, but that just isn’t feasible for many of our clients. So, we reviewed our processes, and we’re proud to say on average, we implement within 4-6 weeks, and in some cases, it takes just
5 days!
6. What are your primary markets/sectors?
We currently support more than 400 manufacturers in the UK. The majority are SMEs performing milling, turning, machining, or treatments in aerospace or automotive sectors. However, with the
breadth of solutions we offer, we support companies of any capability or size, from engineering start-ups to blue chip organisations such as Airbus UK, Bentley Motors, and Rolls-Royce.
7. Do you have growth plans for the future?
With the pandemic, we have seen a greater need for digital systems, and we intend to continue to innovate products and services to meet the changing needs of the market. For example, we are
currently working with a customer to create a ‘Glass factory’ where schedule, progress and capacity data are available to customers at the touch of a button. We are utilising 5G and secure information
sharing to provide the visibility and transparency required with this project. Additionally, we have opened new offices in the North East and the South West to help us deliver
these solutions to more companies across the UK, and we’re targeting significant growth in the next 12 months.