BR Metals Pte Ltd wins SBR National Business Awards for Metals & Mining

Its production workflow re-design project boosted productivity and slashed operating costs.

BR Metals Pte Ltd is an industry-leading specialist in the recycling of Platinum Group Metals (PGMs). Its operations in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Singapore and Cambodia purchase, analyse, and process used catalytic converter, oxygen sensor and spark plug, automotive ECU, as well as petrol-chemical catalyst to recover platinum, palladium and rhodium.

The company is one of the few independent businesses in Southeast Asia that only deploys state-of-the-art equipment in its facilities staffed by an international team of well-qualified and experienced professionals to meet exacting global standards. By maintaining a culture of continuous improvement, BR Metals has built a solid reputation for providing consistently accurate analysis while winning the approval and commendation from clients all over the world with its transparent business processes and excellent customer service.

Like most companies in the waste management industry, BR Metals' biggest challenge is continuing to grow amidst labour shortages and rising costs. Hence, the production workflow re-design project was developed to help the company mitigate the current labour crunch by making the production process less manual labour intensive and more matured worker-friendly. The new production process was set to improve productivity whilst reducing operating costs and safety hazards. The re-design of its production workflow has won BR Metals the Singapore Business Review National Business Award for Metals & Mining.

Through incorporating automation into its production process, BR Metals has achieved these goals. The re-design workflow integrated the following: Replace and redesign the existing machinery to higher load capacity for better working; modify the existing operation process by adding Programmable Logic Control (PLC) and Human Machine Interface (HMI) system to control the operation process; add safeguarding devices to improve safety; and redesign the control system to improve the operation procedures. With the successful roll-out of this project, BR Metals has reduced time required for each production cycle by 72.07% so that its operators could do more in less time. It has also reduced electricity usage by 48.26% and increased cost savings by 38.15%. The new automated process also reduces the intensity of manual labour, which allows BR Metals to hire matured workers to man its production line.

With automation, BR Metals not only made significant gains in productivity and cost savings but also in customer satisfaction with quicker processing time for scrap materials.

The SBR National Business Awards was held on May 17, 2018 at the Conrad Centennial Singapore.

This year's nominations were judged by a panel consisting of Ng Jiak See, executive director and head of corporate finance advisory at Deloitte Singapore & Southeast Asia; Choo Eng Chuan, ASEAN markets leader and partner, international and corporate tax services at Ernst & Young Solutions LLP; Toh Kim Teck, assurance partner at Foo Kon Tan LLP; and Henry Tan, managing director at NEXIA TS.

If you would like to join the 2019 awards and be awarded as one of the most outstanding local companies in Singapore, please email [email protected].