An important new IT project is the Crystal Business Intelligence Framework, which provides unified information from management systems, including SAP, and a production management program called GPro. "We have a successful SAP ERP," said Ting, "but we needed to go beyond that to provide a unified real-time business intelligence framework."
The user interface is a web services portal based on Microsoft Sharepoint Portal 2003, which can be accessed through the group's intranet or remotely, through the Internet. Other Microsoft products in the mix include Business Scorecard Manager 2005 (used to monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and SQL Server 2005, while development tool Visual Studio.NET 2005 is used to extract data from various systems for the data warehouse.
Microsoft's Live Communications Server 2005 is used as a communications tool between users. "If a sales figure fails to reach its budget, and the chairman wants to know why, he can see if the general manager of the relevant division is online and, if so, contact him through text, speech or videophone," said Ting. "Users can also use a white board, or share Excel and PowerPoint files."
RFID streamlines Hanoi factory flow
Another interesting project managed by Ting is the adoption of RFID devices to replace smart cards in providing information on work in progress (WIP) in the company's new Hanoi factory.
Crystal Group uses a real-time shop floor application from Malaysia's GPRO Technologies Berhad: GPro for WIP tracking. "In a competitive market, we wanted to reduce lead time on customer orders, and also obtain more real-time information on defects to support our quality drive," said Ting. "We decided RFID was the answer."
The RFID chips are inserted into tags which are tied to a bundle of a certain garment type. As the workers complete each production task, such as sewing seams or adding buttons, they hang the bundles in a protective bag or a hanging bar and the conveyor moves it past the RFID terminal, where information on the bundle and the completed process is recorded in the GPro application.
The RFID system was tested in Crystal's Dongguan simulation laboratory, then installed at 200 workstations. In future, said Ting, the RFID tags will be utilized at more of the company's 10,000 workstations that use the GPro system.
Previously, Crystal used a "smart card" system which required a separate operation to read a batch of cards after each production stage, while now data from the RFID tags is uploaded automatically to local terminals. "The performance of each production line is monitored in real time," said Ting. "Workers can even check their own output volume and earnings from their local RFID terminal, which supports our incentive scheme."
Washing data
The RFID devices cost more than smart cards, but are re-usable and don't wear out as they don't have to be physically swiped. But unsurprisingly, when bundles of garments go through a washing stage, the RFID devices must be removed. "Our laboratory is developing a waterproof type that can withstand high temperatures, stone and chemical wash," said Ting.
The RFID devices are so successful that other applications are being found for them, including identifying the supplier and batch of fabrics used in production. In most garment companies are still using paper barcodes fixed to garments. "Paper barcodes have to be scanned in batches, they are easily damaged and do not provide real-time information," noted Ting.
Both the Business Intelligence initiative and the RFID technology are providing better management information at Crystal, said Ting "We plan to use the Balanced Scorecard management system to help Crystal's strategic focus," he said. "We have already standardized information between departments and systems and have made it available to our management through the Internet."
Hayco's ERP scheme
When Hayco Manufacturing adopted a new ERP system, its employees were one of the key drivers for implementation. Hayco is a manufacturer and global supplier of diverse modern houseware, ranging from electric toothbrushes to floor cleaners and cleaning products, distributing about 120 million items annually. The Australian company has branches in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
"Our users [told us] that the old system could no longer fulfill our business needs as the company continued to grow," said Raymond Leung, Hayco's vice president for operations. "They urged our management to look for a better system that could provide more functions to improve our planning and reporting processes. After reviewing different ERP systems, we decided to use mySAP ERP."
The company's previous ERP system was increasingly expensive because costs included a server rental based on a per-user basis. More critically, it could no longer fulfill pressing business needs. The management wanted an ERP program capable of supporting long-term business planning, so the decided to implement the new SAP system in the group's Song Gang factory on the mainland as well as the Hong Kong headquarters.
The new ERP needed to support Hayco's intensive new product design and development cycle. As much as 60 percent of the company's business is Original Design Manufacturing (ODM), and Hayco employs 120 engineers in R&D to help customers get new product ideas to market as quickly as possible. To keep up with consumer demand, Hayco needed to shorten its time-to-market for new product designs from a year to under six months.
Implementation
Hayco's implementation partner for the project was the Oasis Consulting Group, and the SAP system is installed on an HP DL350 server running MS: SQL Server 2000. Hayco started implementing the mySAP ERP system in August 2004 and the system was fully operational from May 2005.
Throughout the implementation and training process, Hayco employees made concerted efforts to ensure the success of the project. "Since this is a system requested by our employees, as management, we found that they were very committed to the implementation of the new system. They were more than willing to take time after work and on Saturdays for training," said Ricky Lai, MIS manager.
Visibility into operations
"From a financial perspective, mySAP ERP system is a very powerful data warehouse-it provides higher data integrity and enables three-dimensional reporting," said Wanald Wun, Hayco's financial controller. "We can now easily refer to the raw data when we need it. Having the availability of both cost and profit centers significantly reduces the data errors and provides more accurate information for decision making."
Another feature of the new system is capacity planning. Using the previous ERP system, Hayco needed to manually input data and adjust the system, which did not enable the company to see the current production capacity of its manufacturing facilities. Now Hayco can now respond to customers faster, with shortened production lead time and online real-time data on inventory, ordering and production status.
Errors are minimized and time is saved because data entries do not have to be duplicated as they were in the past. "Now, our management can have a true picture of our production capacity," said Ricky Lai, MIS manager, Hayco. "We can plan ahead on the orders that we receive...overall, we now have better business transparency."
SAP is a very popular ERP system, already used by many of Hayco's clients. "Our key customers are using SAP. This is another reason that we chose SAP as our ERP system," said Wun. "We believe it can ease the IT complexity of any possible integration with our customers in the future."
In selecting their ERP system, Hayco wanted a vendor committed to the market who could serve as a long-term partner. "There have been many acquisitions in the market recently," said Lai. "We were not confident in these companies because we were not sure their systems would be supported by their new parent company...[so] we looked for a company we believed could provide support in the long run."