Nam Wah Watch Case Factory Ltd. is a Hong Kong success story. Established in 1961, it remains a family-owned and operated business with a reputation for quality and an international client base.

In 2000, Nam Wah entered a new era in its development history with the establishment of a joint-venture manufacturing facility in Shenzhen with one of its key customers.

"To support this important joint venture, we needed to build an IT foundation for our business through an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that would allow us to control costs and streamline our interactions with partners and suppliers," explains Andrew Chiu, IT Project Manager at Nam Wah.

Initially Chiu built an ERP system in-house to replace Nam Wah's outdated manual systems and automate sales and distribution.

After three years of operation, this ERP system could no longer meet Nam Wah's critical business needs. In particular, it did not facilitate e-commerce interactions or adequately support New Product Development - the mission-critical process by which a prototype is created to determine optimal product design, suppliers, and costs.

Nor was the in-house ERP solution scalable or customizable enough to support frequent and rapid changes to business processes across company departments with diverse and constantly evolving requirements.

Faster sales and on-time delivery
With Microsoft Dynamics AX deployed, Nam Wah has achieved better than 95% on-time delivery and at least 20% faster product prototype delivery.

Says Chiu, "Taking advantage of the improved communications and more flexible production planning made possible by Microsoft Dynamics AX, we are able to get new products to market sooner, generate sales more quickly, and consistently deliver products when our customers need them."

Better use of data for operational improvement
By improving data transparency across the company and with customers and partners, Nam Wah is streamlining product development and manufacturing, and enhancing customer service.

"Our business data is more integrated and more useful with Microsoft Dynamics AX. We have eliminated errors and wastage due to duplication and manual input, and improved data analysis. Now we can view our business from any angle with a straightforward system for creating and using multidimensional reports, helping us to monitor our performance, identify potential problems, and control costs," Chiu summarizes.

Flexibility and customization for enhanced productivity
"Microsoft Dynamics AX delivered fast deployment, allowing easy integration with our internal processes to help our people get up to speed quickly and improve their satisfaction with the new system. At the same time, it was relatively simple for us to create an entirely new set of processes to support New Product Development," Chiu continues.

"Staff members with minimal technical skills - but no special programming knowledge - are also empowered by Microsoft Dynamics AX to make sophisticated customizations to accommodate changes in our systems that can occur on a day-to-day basis."

Looking ahead, Nam Wah will be able to continue to take advantage of these benefits as it scales Microsoft Dynamics AX to accommodate business growth both in terms of sales and additional manufacturing facilities.