Manufacturing ERP Case Study: How Formex Improved Quality and Productivity
Go-live from contract to production
Increase in manufacturing capacity
in Savings across operations
Company growth since implementation
Formex Metal Industries is a full service, high volume, contract parts manufacturing company located in the heart of the Southern Ontario automotive manufacturing corridor
Precision Metal Manufacturing
Precision machined components, formed tubular products, assemblies, secondary operations
Machining
Automotive
Supplying the automotive industry demands consistent quality at every stage of production. For Formex, maintaining that standard across high-volume precision machining was increasingly difficult without the right tools in place.
Quality data was captured manually and inconsistently across the shop floor. Without quality processes built directly into daily operations, the team had limited ability to spot process variation early, track rejects and returns in a structured way, or connect quality performance to specific jobs and work centres. Issues could only be addressed after they surfaced — by which point scrap had already accumulated and the cost was already incurred.
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Without SPC integrated into production, detecting process variation early was not possible. By the time quality issues became visible, scrap had already built up and rework was the only option.
Rejects and customer returns were logged inconsistently across the shop, making it difficult to identify patterns, trace root causes, or accurately measure the true cost of quality failures.
Quality checks operated independently from production activity. Without a connected system, teams could not link quality results to specific jobs, work centres, or process conditions in any reliable way.
There was no consolidated view of quality metrics across the shop. Assessing overall performance meant pulling data from multiple sources — usually too late to act on what it revealed.
Formex Metal Industries produces precision metal components for demanding customers, including automotive manufacturers. The company operates in a highly disciplined manufacturing environment where production consistency, traceability, and quality performance directly affect customer relationships.
As the business grew, Formex needed stronger systems to support production planning, quality management, and day to day shop coordination. Spreadsheets and disconnected processes made it harder to maintain control across operations. Teams needed better visibility into production performance and quality results.
Formex began evaluating manufacturing ERP solutions that could support high volume contract precision production without disrupting daily operations.
Manufacturing operations evolve over time. ERP software must adapt to real shop floor processes. One factor that stood out to the Formex team was how quickly OnRamp responded when improvements were requested.
“The system had a lot of useful tools when we signed on, but what impressed me most was how quickly they responded when we asked for improvements,” said Collis.
“As soon as we identified something we wanted that OnRamp did not have, they moved quickly to add it. They are always willing to listen to our feedback and enhance the software to help us improve performance.”
This collaboration allowed Formex to continue improving processes after the initial ERP implementation.
Since implementing ERP, Formex has continued improving operational performance.
Production teams gained better visibility into work in progress. Scrap and rework decreased. Managers gained clearer insight into production performance.
With the OnRamp DCP module, Formex plans capacity out over a 10 week horizon using integrated customer demand and resource requirements data to plan manpower on a work center basis for each individual day.
These improvements strengthened productivity and quality across the shop while supporting consistent delivery to automotive customers. For manufacturers evaluating ERP, the Formex story shows how a well executed manufacturing ERP implementation can improve both quality management and operational performance.
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OnRamp’s Detailed Capacity Planning module transformed how Formex manages labour — enabling day-level manpower planning across work centres based on live customer demand and resource data, with savings the team estimates in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Integrated Statistical Process Control gave operators earlier visibility into process variation, driving down scrap and rework across the shop floor. Together, these two capabilities converted what had been reactive, manual processes into measurable and ongoing performance gains.
Manufacturers need visibility across purchasing, production, inventory, and finance. OnRamp connects these functions in one integrated solution designed for manufacturing businesses. Request a demo to see how OnRamp supports growing manufacturers.
Our efforts began as an internal project of Mancor Industries when we identified the need for a more cohesive ERP system to manage the complexity of multiple plants, multiple products, multiple customers and multiple functions.
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