Southern Manufacturing and Electronics 2026: three days in Farnborough

From 3 to 5 February we were in Farnborough for Southern Manufacturing and Electronics 2026, on the MRPeasy stand for all three days. The show recorded 10,722 visitors and 571 exhibitors, the strongest attendance in its 29 year history, and it felt like it. There was a steady buzz on the floor from the moment the doors opened.

Big names, and a lot of businesses like yours

Southern Manufacturing has always mixed the two. Sony, Panasonic and Mazak were there showing large scale capability, precision machining and advanced CNC. Around them were hundreds of small and mid sized businesses, both exhibiting and visiting, which is the part of the show that matters most to us.

That mix suits MRPeasy well. It is built for manufacturers who have outgrown spreadsheets but have no appetite for the cost, complexity and timescales of a traditional ERP project. Farnborough is full of exactly those companies.

Three days of conversations

The stand saw a steady flow of visitors from across the UK, at every stage of growth. Many were new to MRPeasy and wanted to understand how manufacturing software could replace the spreadsheets and disconnected tools they were running on. Others already knew ERP well and were looking for an alternative to legacy software that had stopped supporting their growth. Both groups asked the same practical question in the end: what does it actually take to get live?

That is where we come in. Sara and Richard were on the stand throughout, and having implemented MRPeasy for UK manufacturers of all shapes we could give people a straight answer about what implementation looks like for a business like theirs, how long it tends to take, and where the effort really goes. Usually it is the data and the internal decisions, not the software.

Meeting customers in person

From the first hour, existing MRPeasy users were stopping by to share feedback and talk about how they use the system day to day. A good number of our own customers came to say hello as well, and several used the opportunity to ask more detailed questions about getting more from the system than they currently do. Those conversations are hard to have over a support ticket, and they are one of the main reasons we do these shows.

Looking ahead

Farnborough confirmed what we see every week: the interest in proper manufacturing software among UK small and mid sized businesses is strong and growing. We will be back at more shows this year, including Smart Manufacturing Week at the NEC in June.

If you met us on the stand, thank you for stopping by. If you did not and want to talk about whether MRPeasy would fit your operation, get in touch and we will pick it up from there.