Since its inception in the 1970s, Oceanic Saunas has grown into one of the UK’s leading sauna and steam room manufacturers. From compact infrared cabins to bespoke Turkish steam rooms, the company is renowned for designing and building high-quality wellness spaces for homes and commercial locations.
Fixing leaks in efficiency
The company’s internal systems had not kept pace with its product innovation, as can sometimes happen with long-standing businesses. As a result of the company’s dependence on inefficient productivity tools, the production process was littered with small inefficiencies: duplicate SKUs, inconsistent materials, and non-existent shop floor visibility. “The whole SKU system was a mess,” Sarah says. “We had too many people creating them over the years. It needed a complete clean-up. And because we were expanding our sauna ranges, it seemed like the right time to make everything more efficient and shift systems.”
What began as a system cleanup soon evolved into a company-wide modernization project – a complete realignment of product structures, workflows, and physical space. “And we wanted really good software to underpin it all. Something that would help us tidy up, track things properly, and make the business stronger for the future,” Sarah recalls.
Implementation amid major changes
Doing her own independent research, Sarah came across SME-focused manufacturing software MRPeasy. She tested the trial mode and was impressed, even checking how it looked on her phone to ensure usability for warehouse workers, who’d mostly be using it for reporting. “I loved it immediately. It was intuitive and had a brilliant interface. My logic was that if I find using it easy, my salespeople and the rest of the staff will too,” she says.
The implementation of MRPeasy commenced in late 2022, right in the middle of three major parallel projects: a complete product range redesign, a new Magento 2 e-commerce website, and, for Sarah personally, having two children.
“It was a busy period,” she laughs. “But everything had to feed into one another to make it all work.”
Production efficiency rising like the heat
Since going live, MRPeasy has become central to how Oceanic Saunas runs its operations. It provides Sarah with a full top-down view of how the company is functioning. “I can log in anywhere in the world and see how the business is doing — how many sales we’ve had today, what’s in production, what’s coming in, everything,” Sarah says. She uses CRM filters to monitor quotation conversion rates and track daily sales performance – something that was previously difficult to see. “It’s all there at a glance now.”
Aside from the increased visibility, accurate costing has been another significant improvement for Oceanic Saunas. “One of our major issues with Sage was that we couldn’t cost things in sufficient detail. With MRPeasy, we can assign overheads and have the system automatically calculate product cost based on SKU configurations. I’m much more confident with it now, plus, I can do it very quickly.”
Sarah also particularly appreciates MRPeasy’s matrix BOM feature, which allows flexible product configurations. “We have product variations – different materials, finishes, details, and so on. It’s so easy to choose the variation and have MRPeasy automatically create the related orders, calculate costs and lead times, and even generate purchase orders for missing items. It takes loads of work off the team.”
Sarah’s advice: do the homework before overhauling systems
For other manufacturers, Sarah offers a word of advice: “Don’t rush in. I would read everything I can on ERP systems,” she says. “These systems are huge, and there’s much to look out for.”
She concludes with the clarity of someone who’s done the hard work: “Going through the process of learning what I needed the software to do was essential. While it took a while, it gave me the confidence to recognize good software when I saw it. MRPeasy is just nice to use, and everything you need, from CRM to production planning, is there. That sold it to me. We’ve definitely found new efficiencies with it,” she concludes. “MRPeasy supports the kind of manufacturing discipline we were aiming for and gives us the structure to adapt to change.”
For more information, visit www.MRPeasy.com.
