Intern in Digital Manufacturing Systems & ERP Implementation

About The Business: Thomas Lyte is a London-based luxury goldsmith and silversmith and a holder of a Royal Warrant, handcrafting bespoke silverware, trophies and fine leather goods for sporting bodies, institutions, and private and corporate clients. The business combines traditional craftsmanship with modern manufacturing, operating a London workshop where precious-metal pieces are designed, made, finished, hallmarked, quality-checked and despatched.

Overview: What will you be doing? This 12-week internship focuses on supporting Thomas Lyte in preparing for, coordinating, and embedding its new manufacturing ERP system, Sapman v12, mapping and improving workflows, structuring and cleansing the data the system needs, and helping the business move successfully to go-live. You will work closely with the Thomas Lyte leadership team and act as the internship's day-to-day point of contact with Sapman v12's supplier, Sapphire Manufacturing Systems, coordinating requirements, questions, data, and progress between the business and the vendor.

Desirable Skills: Essential skills: Postgraduate or graduate student in Business Analysis, Information Systems, Operations Management, Supply Chain, Project Management, Business Systems, Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Management or a similar subject. Under preferred skills: Interest in or exposure to ERP/MRP systems such as Sapman v12, Sage 50/200, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Odoo or similar, particularly stock control, bills of materials, works orders and MRP.

Job Description:

Your role is to prepare the business and its data for that implementation, keep the project on track, and make sure Thomas Lyte gets maximum value from the vendor's work.

To protect continuity beyond the 12 weeks, you will work alongside a named internal project owner who retains the vendor relationship and system knowledge after the internship ends.

Key responsibilities include:

• Acting as the day-to-day point of contact with the Sapman v12 supplier (Sapphire Manufacturing Systems), coordinating meetings, requirements, questions, data hand-offs and implementation milestones alongside the internal project owner.
• Working closely with the leadership team to understand priorities, agree scope, and report progress, risks and decisions.
• Mapping current workflows across sales/enquiry, design, purchasing, workshop production, finishing, quality assurance and despatch.
• Shadowing and speaking with staff across the business to understand how work is currently planned, communicated and delivered.
• Documenting the journey from customer enquiry, quotation and design through to production planning, making, hallmarking, finishing, QA, despatch and invoicing.
• Identifying key handover points, dependencies, bottlenecks, duplicated work and manual or spreadsheet-based processes.
• Capturing and structuring the master data Sapman v12 requires – customers, suppliers, materials (including precious metals and hallmarking data), products, bills of materials, works-order routes and operations, stock locations, lead times and cost/estimating data.
• Supporting data cleansing and preparation for migration from existing systems and spreadsheets (and, where relevant, from Sage) into Sapman v12.
• Defining stock control, warehouse and traceability requirements – including batch/serial traceability and provenance appropriate to a precious-metal, Royal Warrant environment.
• Creating clear “as-is” workflow maps and supporting “to-be” workflows showing how processes will work within Sapman v12.
• Helping identify practical efficiencies, quick wins and areas where the ERP will reduce admin, improve stock accuracy or improve visibility.
• Supporting the creation and upkeep of an ERP implementation plan priorities, owners, dependencies, risks and next steps, aligned to the vendor's stages.
• Working alongside the Sapman v12 implementation team during setup, data transfer, configuration checks, testing and first-user training.
• Helping define basic reporting and performance requirements, such as job status, work-in-progress, capacity, lead times, stock levels and cost-to-estimate comparison.
• Producing clear documentation, SOPs and handover materials so the business and the internal project owner can continue confidently after go-live.

Essential skills
•    Postgraduate or graduate student in Business Analysis, Information Systems, Operations Management, Supply Chain, Project Management, Business Systems, Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Management or a similar subject.
•    Strong interest in digital transformation, ERP/MRP systems and business process improvement.
•    Confident communicator, comfortable working directly with a leadership team and an external software supplier, and able to translate discussions into clear documentation.
•    Strong analytical and organisational skills, with the ability to map processes clearly and identify inefficiencies.
•    Good written communication skills, with the ability to create structured reports, process maps, master-data templates and handover documents.
•    Good spreadsheet skills and confidence working with, cleansing and structuring business data.
•    Comfortable working in a small business and a real manufacturing/workshop environment.
•    Able to use initiative, coordinate a project, ask good questions and work independently with guidance.
•    Proficiency in Microsoft 365 applications including Microsoft Office, Copilot and Sharepoint. 

Preferred skills
•    Experience or knowledge of process-mapping tools such as Miro, Lucidchart, Visio, Draw.io or similar.
•    Interest in or exposure to ERP/MRP systems such as Sapman v12, Sage 50/200, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Odoo or similar, particularly stock control, bills of materials, works orders and MRP.
•    Understanding of stock control, inventory accuracy, bills of materials, and batch/serial traceability.
•    Understanding of Lean, continuous improvement or business process improvement principles.
•    Basic understanding of production planning, scheduling, purchasing or supply-chain processes.
•    Some experience of coordinating with external suppliers, vendors or stakeholders.
•    Interest in luxury goods, craftsmanship, precious metals, silversmithing/goldsmithing, leather or high-value bespoke manufacturing.
•    Experience preparing reports, presentations or project documentation.
•    Curiosity about how digital systems support growth, stock accuracy, traceability and better decision-making.