Committed to embracing innovations that drive success in business, Biu Chun Watch Hands & Parts Manufacturers Limited wanted to harness automation opportunities in order to boost operational efficiencies and better serve customers. With Epicor Kinetic, the company increased order accuracy and established a strong foundation for future growth and development.
Biu Chun Watch Hands & Parts Manufacturers Limited (BCWH) is headquartered in Hong Kong with a production plant in Dongguan, South China. Specializing in the production of watch hands, clock hands, and associated parts, the company has gained an international reputation in the global watch and clock market—with a particularly strong trade base in the U.S., Europe, and Japan.
Established in 1985, BCWH is the first watch hand manufacturer in Hong Kong to have successfully developed diamond-cut watch hands. Committed to embracing innovations that drive business success, the company wanted to harness the automation opportunities offered by Industry 4.0 to boost operational efficiencies and better serve customers.
Determined to improve productivity—and respond faster to customer demands—senior management at BCWH wanted to replace an inadequate enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that was restricting company-wide performance.
With limited functionality, the system was unable to support company-wide information sharing, and many workflow procedures had to be completed manually. All these repetitive data input tasks represented a significant waste of manpower for the business.
From a production perspective, the ERP platform was also inhibiting the company’s ability to undertake rigorous quality control checks and oversee the precise handling of watch parts to the exacting standards of each customer. Managing tens of thousands of watch hand designs and more than a hundred million orders daily, this represented a major challenge for BCWH.
“Staff often needed to review the requirements of individual customers manually—something that consumed significant amounts of time. Modifying these documents required considerable effort—Just one mistake could have grave production consequences,” explained Michael Mok, chief financial officer at BCWH.
BCWH wanted an ERP system that would provide a strong foundation for the future growth and development of the company while delivering improved information transparency, productivity, and accuracy across the business. The senior management team requested a demonstration of Epicor ERP (now known as Kinetic) to see if the platform was the right fit for the unique requirements of the company.
Streamlined and automated workflows has enabled us to reduce staff numbers while enjoying much higher productivity - a very welcome surprise.
The in-depth simulation—which utilized actual BCWH operational models and business data—demonstrated how effectively the Epicor platform solution delivered on every demand made of it. As a result, the decision was made to partner with Epicor.
“Flexible and easy-to-use, Epicor ERP offered an extensive range of functionality, and we were particularly impressed with the concurrent-user licensing model. This enables us to manage costs as we evolve and grow the business—maximizing the benefits we get from the system,” explained Mok.
Having implemented the new Epicor ERP solution, the company quickly experienced a significant number of efficiency improvements across its production operations.
“We streamlined and automated several workflows, which eradicated the need to manually copy orders and eliminated the associated risk of introducing human errors into operational processes. As a result, the company has been able to reduce staff numbers while enjoying much higher productivity—a very welcome surprise,” said Mok.
Gaining user acceptance was vital to ensure the new Epicor ERP system was fully utilized by employees. To this end, senior management communicated its plans to employees and undertook user group consultations to ensure appropriate usage habits could be accommodated at deployment.
“A comprehensive training program ensured employees were confident about using the new ERP solution effectively. Once they had familiarized themselves with the new system and observed the positive outcomes it made possible, they were truly willing and ready to embrace the change,” said Mok.
The new system has given BCWH a powerful platform for maintaining competitiveness in a fast-moving market and the ability to make the most of upcoming business opportunities.
“We now have a modern ERP system in place that will enable us to take advantage of new digital ways of working—including options like artificial intelligence and intelligent connected devices that will enable us to fine-tune our operations,” concluded Mok.
