Thorpe needed to safely replace a legacy ERP and regain real-time control of materials and production without disrupting a live manufacturing operation.
Thorpe Packaging is a specialist converter of food-grade materials, managing reel-based stock through tightly controlled production processes where accuracy, traceability, and compliance are critical.
Thorpe Packaging was operating on a legacy ERP system that remained central to the business but was no longer supported or easy to adapt. Materials moved through the operation using scanners, however the system depended on strict process adherence and a user interface that was difficult to use under production pressure.
In practice, key process steps were sometimes missed, production scheduling relied on manual job cards, and stock movements following production were not always completed in real time. Over time, this reduced confidence that system records reflected what was actually happening on the shop floor. Maintaining reliable traceability from goods in through production to dispatch increasingly relied on manual reconciliation.
Replacing the ERP outright would have introduced unnecessary risk, but continuing without improved operational control was no longer sustainable.
Simportal worked alongside the Thorpe team to understand how materials and production actually flowed day to day.
Rather than forcing a disruptive system change, we introduced an operational control layer alongside the existing ERP. Materials control was addressed first, ensuring goods in, stock movements, and production usage were captured accurately and consistently. End-to-end traceability was embedded from the outset, linking materials from receipt through production to finished reels at dispatch.
Simportal was run in parallel with the existing ERP, allowing management and operators to validate accuracy and build confidence without disrupting live operations. Materials were run in parallel for slightly longer, enabling production testing using real material data. Once confidence was established, production scheduling and completion processes were brought under Simportal control and the legacy ERP was switched off.
Thorpe now operates with trusted operational data embedded into daily work. Control was restored without disruption, and the transition away from the legacy ERP was achieved through confidence rather than risk.