Replacing a legacy system with a bespoke ERP and MRP platform for a specialist fragrance and flavour supplier

Augustus Oils relies on decades of operational experience and knowledge. Much of that knowledge lived in the old Paradox database, spreadsheets and documents, and in the heads of staff. The result was exposure to several risks.

The legacy system limited the number of concurrent users. It was also difficult to extend, and did not provide the necessary web access modern teams need. Rather than a live dashboard, reports required specific queries. Compliance documents such as safety sheets were maintained manually, which created unnecessary administration, as well as audit risk.

Additionally, pricing rules, formula compositions for its products, and quality thresholds were almost impossible to manage consistently across the business.

This was more than just an IT issue: the system touched virtually every part of the operation. For example, a quote for an international customer might entail foreign exchange rates, banking fees, insurance, commission, and logistics and shipping information. A finished fragrance base would often need its full history, through blending, decanting, and reconditioning. 

These unique needs simply couldn’t be found in a generic off-the-shelf ERP or MRP system. Augustus Oils needed a platform that maintained what made the business stand out, while removing the risk and inefficiency of its old database.

With fragrance and essential oils, the products are not simple units of stock. They’re uniquely natural, harvest-dependent, regulated, blended, certified, and reformulated. The compliance needs are critical to the industry. 

Even with considerable customisation and clunky workarounds, existing platforms would still miss the details that matter most: formula composition, batch parentage, safety data sheets, multi-currency quote logic, and IFRA and REACH documentation. 

Additionally, with decades of vitally important live data, the migration risks were high, and it was crucial to migrate Paradox data gradually, rather than attempt a single bulk transfer. This allowed Augustus Oils to keep operating while live data was moved in stages.

First Option Software developed and built a bespoke operational platform, called Streamline – a comprehensive system that supports every department involved in the order lifecycle: sales, directors, factory floor, quality control, costings, compliance, and logistics and shipping.

Sales teams can raise multi-currency quotes and track conversion. Production teams can manage goods received notices, batch creation, and data worksheets. Quality control can manage samples, testing, and pass-rate analytics. Costings and compliance can manage material costs, suppliers, REACH dossiers, IFRA standards, and product safety datasheets.

The platform includes key modules for:

• Sales quotes, customer info, contacts, and documentation
• Product catalogue, formulas and specifications
• Batches, movements, worksheets and samples
• Quality control tests and pass-rate reporting
• Costings, purchase requisitions, currencies and freight
• Logistics, dispatch, export records and packing slips
• Compliance and hazard data, UN numbers, SDS generation and IFRA records

This gives Augustus Oils a single solution, rather than a disconnected set of tools to manage its needs across the full product lifecycle.

Streamline helps Augustus Oils create international quotes reliably and quickly. It supports multiple products, currencies, exchange rates and fees, insurance, and freight terms, which replaces manual spreadsheet calculations and workarounds. The result is more consistent pricing for sales teams, as well as better customer-facing PDFs, and a reliable record of the rates at the time of quoting.

Many of the company’s client relationships begin with a sample, a brief, or a specific aroma-matching need. Streamline records these workflows properly, linking samples to batches, stock movements, customer information, and possible substitutions. The system also gives full batch visibility from goods received through to blending, reconditioning, and dispatch, with a reliable audit trail.

This gives a clear, detailed history of how customer relationships develop, and ensures early-stage trials and samples can be traced back to the right product and batch, with finished batches retaining key parent chain data.

Streamline supports the different costing requirements of traded oils, formulas, and in-house blends. This means connecting precise ingredient percentages and recipes, raw material costs, supplier data, exchange rates and import costs, and stock availability in one place. When there are stock shortages, the system can trigger supplier requests, helping control pricing and production planning more efficiently.

At the click of a button, the system can generate key safety datasheets and other documents from product data, with all the required brand and regulatory information. This helps maintain and manage GHS, REACH, IFRA, shipping, kosher and organic, and other certification requirements with a single source of truth.

Rather than relying on the IT department or query-based, ad-hoc reporting, Streamline includes live dashboards with critical real-time data. This means users can see quote activity, stock, expiry alerts, and other business-critical information instantly, allowing them to make decisions and react before things escalate.