'Seasonal products, especially, always present a challenge for the company in terms of material planning and production schedules,' said Ronald K.Y Fung, Packway Industries' managing director.

Packway's management wanted to redesign and automate internal processes, such as order processing, inventory and production scheduling. 'We needed a system that could take Packway to the next level of business efficiency and we wanted to start it right. More importantly, we needed a versatile business software solution that could provide us with a clear upgrade path to support Packway's business growth in the long run,' Mr Fung said.

After a nine-month selection process, evaluating some of the leading ERP suites on the market, Packway chose a solution from Oracle. It was considered a good match for an SME looking to improve supply chain management and was relatively cost-effective - HK$2 million for hardware, software, consultancy and staff training.

'The Oracle E-Business Suite Special Edition enabled us to consolidate all business processes in a single system at a cost known at the outset, with the option to adopt additional functionality to meet business requirements later,' Mr Fung said.

The system was deployed in Packway's head office and manufacturing plant in China by Bechelon Consulting, a certified Oracle partner.

Implementation of the ERP started in February this year, with Bechelon consultants mapping out Packway's business processes. The ERP modules adopted covered financials, purchasing, inventory management, order management, discrete manufacturing and manufacturing scheduling.

Bechelon customised some ERP modules to suit SME operational processes. 'For example, the supply chain module automatically prepares customs declarations for China. Also, we equipped the manufacturing module with ECN (engineering change notes), commonly used in the electronics industries to amend the content, design and packaging of the product,' said Toney Chang, director of Bechelon Consulting.

This was the first time that Packway staff had used a major software system, so Bechelon consultants worked closely with the company's management and project team to streamline operational procedures to conform to best practice. For example, new purchase orders now have to be routed through the finance department for customer credit authorisation before being processed, and the ERP system now does this automatically.

Changing operating procedures is always a challenge, Mr Chang said. 'However, we were helped by Packway's senior management, which was committed to the Oracle system and provided the incentives and the encouragement needed to get the staff behind the system.'

Arics Poon, managing director for Oracle South China and Hong Kong, said: 'In the past, only the large companies could benefit from ERP, but Packway is a successful SME manufacturer that needs the best management tools to address the complexity of the modern manufacturing supply chain. The greater transparency and management control provided by this project will accelerate the company's strong growth in global markets.'

The Oracle Manufacturing Scheduling module includes graphical presentation of production resources, including labour and machine time, making it easy for management to plan and allocate production resources. The drag-and-drop functionality is used to reschedule jobs, which helps Packway management address the company's seasonal production needs.

By consolidating the supply chain and sales operations with the Oracle ERP, the company now has up-to-date inventory data to enable efficient material movement and provide a controlled environment for tracking inventory to match demand. The greater efficiency of material movement and inventory tracking contributes to better inventory turnover and customer satisfaction.

The new ERP addresses supply chain processes between the China factory and the customers, Mr Chang said.