READ THE INTERVIEW AND THE CASE STUDY AND PERFORM SWOT ANALYSIS FOR THIS COMPANY

INTERVIEW

Good Morning Garry , thanks for the meeting and providing us with a case study. Just to give us a little bit background about yourself and the company?

Okay, I am Garry and I am the managing director of Hockley Mint Limited. We are an independence manufacturing company based in the Jewellery Quoter in Hockley. And we basically must produce jewelry for the retail whether it's independence or multiple resellers around the country. And we also explore work as well. Our factory is thirty thousand square foot factory, and we do all types of manufacturing, we bring in the raw materials, the fine gold, the fine silver, platinum and Palladium. We alloy that material on site, and then we actually start to manufacture, use various different processes to complete and finish jewelry. Our customers can take any part of the process along the line so whether that CAD cam or if that's bespoke design or fully finished items of jewelry or just wedding bands or castings, so we have a complete offering, a finished jewelry, unfinished jewelry and we control the total supply chain of it.

Even that most organizations are just coming back to work And given the recent pandemic, what you see here The current challenges that you are facing in terms of technology or in a business wise?

Yeah, so we worked our way through the pandemic, and we also carry a manufacturer in the pandemic. We had about 50% of the staff working in the business because. Although the home counties and home countries, sort of an, the supply dried up little bit, produce, weddings, our export market was still strong. So some of the challenges that we have seen during the pandemic and coming back to work, one has been Brexit, and the challenges of Brexit and the new rules coming in place from Brexit. It took us probably about six months to get at our heads around what's going on. To get the right information and then to implement the correct processes and procedures into the business. So we could fully understand that, that, the impact of Brexit. We've had to change quite a lot of administration work and our processes to ensure that we are fully compliant with an import export rules. So that's one of the significant challenges we had and another challenge, we are having and the most companies are having , is that of manufacturing and getting employees into the business. So it's certainly been tough for us in recruiting and trying to get people who are Skilled to come into the workplace and we did, last year, have a high demand for our products, and our volumes of work have went up. Unfortunately, instead of sticking to our 10 working days , it increased to 20-25 working days due to on September, he dies, arabs really times increase to twenty two, twenty five working days due to the fact that we didn't have a labor and the capacity to fulfill all those orders in a quick enough time. Those are two main chalenges we faced since the pandemic. Okay.

And you did mention about processes, and you did mention about, employee and the Skillset that you require for manufacturing. Given that this is more of a specialized kind of the skillset. Do you think maybe some sort of technology or any sort of information system could come in place to help you with such activities?

Yeah, I mean, jewelry making and specifically on our side is quite traditional. We have developed technology to help with that, uh, you know, over the years gone by, we've put CNC machines to manufacture wedding bands. Rather than the traditional technique of of actually somebody shaping the wedding band and manufacturing those wedding bands by hand. So we have automated some of the processes. But some of the processes we've got , casting side, it is an art that been going on for thousands years in casting. So we, we have reduced technology where we can And so the next step change that we believe is to further automate the process of of of wedding bands, and also diamond set wedding bands. And that is sort of a CNC machine that would also set the diamonds into the band. Plus This would reduces some of the labour that we would need and some of the skills that we would need, although we would have to up skill in operators in setting those CNC machines up. So there are some some technologies that we have used, but that is still some investigations and further work to go on. And given that you are in this industry, I believe having ethical as well as the traceability of the final product is very key.

Do you see the future implementing any sort of tools or technology to kind of Adapt to this traceability ?

Yes, so we run a fair trade program and fare trade gold scheme. So we can actually trace our fare trade gold back specifically back to Peru where gold came from , unfortunately that can't be set for all gold that comes to our company because it's from all world sources and it comes from many places around the world, it gets amalgamated, it gets put together, get refined together, and then gets released from banks and from investment houses back into the industry .There has been a big movement recently in blockchain technology and trying to trace diamonds and put that blockchain technology in for that. And one of the areas I thought is that perhaps that could be done for gold, silver, platinum or palladium. How would that technology in that blockchain technology work in the traceability of the metals. We are seeing that the consumer these days are more and more Aware and do want to know where that metal is come from, or where those diamonds come from, for that traceability, for the ethics of the particular rights that they are buying as well. Thanks, and perhaps again, looking at terms of technology in the development of technology. I'm sure you have the ambition of becoming If you're not but I am assuming you are already top company in West Midlands may be expanding further to Europe as well.

Do you see yourself in terms of manufacturing, moving to things like industry 4.4 and machine production?

Absolutely, as a company, we were inspired to do it better, we inspired to be more productive, to be more competitive on a worldwide scale. As a said, it is quite labor intensive, the jewelry manufacturing processes, the moment, and although we streamlined some of those processes we still look to improve what we do. As been market leaders, you know, we see ourselves as very high on that list in the UK but the certainly parts of Europe and the rest of the world that we wanted sort of move into, and I think the only room by that we would, compete, is to have that drive for that technology, to make our processes and certainly To remove some of those manual tasks that we do in the business. Thank you very much. And just one final question vary in terms of Your vision for, basically the next five years.

Where would you like to see the company in terms of, maybe as a technology point of view, rather than from the manufactured point of view ?

Yes, so for the next five years, I would like to see us at that cutting edge, we are the market leaders in technology, in information technology and also in production technology as well. So that we are seen as the semi leaders in Europe, and we've got the capabilities and we've got from 83 to 85 staff on site at the moment. Our plan is to expand the production facilities to improve our efficiencies and to make us more productive. So The only way we can do that if we can't get the skills is to go more automated and smart manufacturing.

You are talking about smart manufacturing , is it something that you already explored or is it at the moment something that you are thinking ?

We have taken different processes from outside of the industry's sort of the CNC manufacturing which sort of done before and brought that in into our industry, manufacturing wedding bands. It is that sort of thing like I said, what other industries are doing that will compliment our industry and make it better and smarter for us to work.

CASE STUDY

BUSINESS CASE SUMMARY

Hockley Mint (HM) is a prestigious award-winning Jewellery manufacturer and has been in business for over 65 years. HM is a traditional craft-based business located in Birmingham's renowned Jewellery Quarter. HM designs & manufactures bespoke and batch jewellery for large retailers, retail outlets and direct retail alliances. HM sources raw materials (gold, platinum, silver & palladium). The company has above 5M+ turnover attributed to the wedding ring market, bespoke design product, unset mounts and trade casting. HM has acquired two small manufacturing SMEs to capture more market share and obtain the skills to produce goods previously outsourced. The legacy business IT system & process for tracking productivity, controlling suppliers, distribution and sales orders are manual clunky & inefficient, which hampers growth. HM aims to be the leading Jewellery Manufacturer in Europe by adopting the latest digital technologies and staying competitive. In addition, HM aspires to build trust across the value chain management by ethical and responsibly sourced material. Therefore, there is a need to audit and substantiate the provenance claim, essential to consumers. This will be a strategic differentiator for the company within its markets due to the transparency. Hence, HM is exploring the use of emerging technology in their supply chain and manufacturing processes as a clear route to become market leaders in high-value jewellery manufacturing. This ambitious vision requires new IT technologies, a digital transformation strategy and a roadmap. Hence, HM needs a novel digital solution that automates and optimises business operations to improve tracking, productivity, resource utilisation, system bottlenecks, reduce Precious Metal (PM) losses, minimise operational costs, & integrate back-office functions. This solution should include algorithms integrating with external systems to synchronise with trusted jewellery price providers' systems to capture real-time PM prices. The solution should eliminate manual repricing and minimise operational costs resulting in a competitive price and service offering. HM needs to have some online solutions that introduce innovative services and enable consumers' orders to simplify tracking and payment processing. The solution should develop a strategic competitive advantage for HM and drive new retail partnerships while responding to market trends.

However, HM is currently using Obsolete technology as a core business system that does not support system integration internally or externally. Also, HM current internal IT systems & practices are inadequate to support the company's growth prospects & digital commerce strategies. However, HM lacks specialised knowledge and expertise to:

Develop standardised business processes & workflows of current & future operations which is necessary to automate activities.

Implement methods & techniques to ensure data compliance within core business operations.

Design & develop a new scalable and flexible software system that integrates all departments, simplify day-to-day operations, and meets their e-commerce aspirations.

Document operations to capture tacit staff knowledge of day-to-day activities.

Digitally transform business operations, including skills for:

Data Interrogation and interpretation

Generating reliable statistics for accurate Reporting

technically HM is hindered by its lack of:

A centralised database system

IT operational technology strategy.