For large manufacturing groups with operations spanning the nation and multiple independent legal entities and production bases, the greatest challenge in human resource management is not technology, but how to handle extreme "complexity" and "diversity."

The client in this case, a globally leading manufacturing giant, is a prime example facing this challenge. Multiple factories and legal entities operated with independent rules and non-interconnected data. Piece-rate methods, price lists, allowances, subsidies, and bonus/penalty rules varied significantly across locations ("a different face for every factory"). The core manufacturing piece-rate payroll process was particularly complex, involving thousands of products and dozens of parameters (e.g., production steps, pass rates, loss rates), making payroll calculation highly intricate. Manual calculations were unsustainable, posing significant accuracy and compliance risks.

This decentralized payroll management model prevented effective unified control at the group level, resulting in data fragmentation, high operational costs, and substantial compliance risks. The core pain point was: Could a system be found that respects the business specificity of each legal entity while achieving standardization and centralized governance at the group level?

PART.01 Project Overview

By implementing a highly customized payroll and piece-rate solution based on CDP WorkLife, CDP helped this global manufacturing leader build a centralized, automated digital HR management platform.

Core Project Value

Covers 18 legal entities and 30+ cities in China, efficiently serving 8,000+ employees.

Achieves 100% accurate calculation of complex manufacturing piece-rate wages; processes 6,000+ data entries in<5 minutes=""> per cycle.

Supports 3,000+ piece-rate product types and 30+ independent calculation logic items, fully adapting to multi-rule, multi-process scenarios.

Delivers 300 reports monthly, handles 200+ heterogeneous issues annually, achieving high responsiveness and controllability throughout the process.

This project not only achieved 100% payroll accuracy and reduced complex piece-rate calculation time from "several days" to "under 5 minutes" but also demonstrated a replicable path for how digital transformation can help traditional manufacturing overcome management complexity, reduce costs, increase efficiency, and achieve precise control.

PART.02 Client Background

Company Profile: A globally leading kitchen and bath manufacturing giant, operating multiple large production bases and its Asia-Pacific headquarters in China.

Business Goals

Build a centralized, standardized HR management and payroll calculation system.

Address the complex payroll challenges of manufacturing – multiple factories, diverse rules, high frequency – to achieve cost optimization and efficiency breakthroughs.

Enhance the strategic value of HR, supporting group-wide compliance control and rapid business expansion.

PART.03 Challenges

Common Industry Pain Points:

Large manufacturing workforce, high turnover, complex pay structures (e.g., piece-rate, tiered pricing, position allowances).

Data and rule isolation between multiple production sites and legal entities, making unified control difficult.

High error rates and long cycles associated with traditional manual/semi-manual payroll processes, unsuitable for short-cycle, multi-batch production models.

Lack of real-time data support prevents management from quickly gaining labor cost insights, impacting operational decisions.

Specific Client Pain Points:

Previously, subsidiaries calculated payroll separately using inconsistent rules, resulting in high personnel configuration costs.

Piece-rate payroll involved 2,000+ influencing parameters (department, process step, pass rate, loss rate, etc.), creating a high manual calculation burden.

Absence of a unified HR system led to severe data silos, high compliance and audit risks.

PART.04 Solution & Innovative Highlights

Not Replacement, but Empowerment

Traditional solutions often try to apply one standard rule set to all operations, leading to poor adaptability. In this project, CDP broke away from the "one-size-fits-all" paradigm of traditional ERP or HR systems, innovatively creating a "centralized platform + distributed logic" payroll management architecture. The core innovation lies in recognizing and embracing this business complexity, using technology to empower rather than suppress the differences between business units.

Product Solution

Built a customized manufacturing payroll platform based on CDP WorkLife, supporting parallel calculations for multiple legal entities and rule sets.

Achieved fully automated collection (via standardized template import), calculation, and seamless integration of piece-rate wages with the payroll system.

Provided flexible configuration capabilities, supporting differentiated customization for multiple pay items, piece-rate templates, and product type logic.

Integrated bank filing, tax declaration, and electronic payslips, automating the entire payroll management chain from "data -> calculation -> disbursement -> archiving".

Course of Cooperation

PART.05 Project Implementation Results

Key Results:

Achieved 100% payroll accuracy, handles 200+ issues/year, delivers 300 reports/month.

Improved piece-rate wage calculation efficiency by over 90%; processing 6,000+ data entries takes<5 minutes="">.

Successfully supports multiple different paydays and multiple payroll processes, enabling unified group-wide control.

Reduced manual operational costs, allowing HR to focus on strategic support and employee services.

Industry-Leading Highlights:

A highly customized system tackling highly complex manufacturing pay scenarios, supporting real-time calculation with thousands of parameters.

Adapted multiple data interfaces to fit the existing factory data ecosystem, ensuring smooth integration.

The system demonstrates high scalability and stability, effectively supporting mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and business diversification.

PART.06 Project Summary & Future Outlook

The true essence of digital transformation lies not in using technology to erase differences, but in using more advanced platforms and technical architectures to accommodate, manage, and empower those differences.

This client's collaboration with CDP, spanning over ten years, fully demonstrates how digital means can transform business complexity in a high-complexity scenario like manufacturing piece-rate payroll into a core competitive advantage and control strength for the enterprise. Evolving from initial payroll outsourcing to a full-process HR digital solution, CDP, with WorkLife at its core, has built an efficient, stable, and scalable payroll calculation platform for the client. This has not only enabled accurate and efficient processing of complex payroll across all regions under multiple rule sets but also yielded significant benefits in cost control, compliance management, and HR efficiency enhancement.