HMS History: From "Efficiency Pain Points" to "Company Inception" In 1890, HMS's first-generation founder was born. In his early years, he worked as an apprentice in a Swiss watchmaking factory. The daily manual processing scenes made him deeply realize the contradiction between "precision and efficiency" — at that time, watch parts required craftsmen to spend a long time polishing, but it was still difficult to break through the yield bottleneck. This experience laid the groundwork for his future engagement in the "industrial efficiency revolution." Later, he read *Luzernische Handels- und Gewerbepolitik vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des schweizerischen Mittelstandes* by Johannes Schwendimann. The book's judgment that "the iteration of Swiss handicraft manufacturing to semi-industrialization is an inevitable trend" highly aligned with his industry perception. A seed of "empowering manufacturing with technology" thus took root in his heart. In 1921, the Swiss government promulgated the *Act on the Promotion of Handicrafts*, providing policy and financial support for promoting the transformation of the manufacturing industry. The 31-year-old first-generation founder seized the opportunity, successfully obtained a loan from the industry foundation, and formally established Helvetic Manufacture Service (HMS) with the mission of "making precision manufacturing more efficient," kicking off a century-long journey.
Family Inheritance of HMS: The "Value Relay" of Three Generations
The First Corporate Charter: HMS's "Genetic Code"
The *Corporate Charter* formulated in HMS's early days is the "value criterion" for three generations of inheritance. It defines five core genes, each of which has been continuously deepened in subsequent practices:
- Original aspiration to serve manufacturing: Do not engage in mass consumer goods production or non-core financial investment, always focus on the manufacturing field to ensure resources are concentrated on improving partners' core competitiveness;
- Partner value creation and delivery: All business designs start with "partner needs", from "pay-per-capacity" to "financial leasing" and then to "global market development", all ending with "results perceivable by partners";
- Long-termism: Resist the temptation of short-term profits, such as not shrinking services during the 1930s economic crisis but launching flexible solutions instead;
- Environmental management: Integrate environmental considerations into manufacturing solutions, such as optimizing equipment lubrication systems to reduce energy consumption and promoting precision processing to reduce material waste; later, cooperate with vocational colleges to develop "green manufacturing processes";
- Young talent selection and cultivation: In the early days, compile *Automatic Lathe Operation Manual* to train craftsmen; in the later period, cooperate with Swiss vocational colleges to integrate frontline industry information and solutions into the talent cultivation system, reserving "technology-savvy and partner-aware" compound talents for the manufacturing industry. This charter has kept HMS "on course" for a century
History of HMS
HMS Founder and Tornos Universal Swiss-Type Lathe: The "Key to Breaking the Deadlock" of Industrialization
The first-generation founder firmly believed: "Fully automatic industrialization is not about replacing manual work, but rather letting the value of manual work bloom on the basis of higher efficiency." This belief led him to focus on the local Swiss machine tool brand Tornos — at that time, Tornos had been deeply engaged in the automatic lathe field for over 40 years. The M10 single-spindle automatic lathe launched in the 1920s, relying on the "high-rigidity bed + precision gear transmission" technology, became a benchmark equipment for small and medium-sized parts processing, which exactly met the dual needs of Swiss manufacturing for "efficiency improvement + precision guarantee."
Founder and Team of HMS: The "Technology + Market" Compound Strength
The team formed by the first-generation founder was the core support for HMS's early success — they were not only engineers proficient in machine tool principles, but also "value translators" who understood the industry and partners:
- Technology side: A 5-person technical team provided on-site training and compiled *Automatic Lathe Operation Manual for Swiss Manufacturing Enterprises*, converting complex machine tool parameters into "step-by-step process guidelines" to help SMEs get started quickly;
- Market side: Went deep into frontline scenarios such as Geneva Watch Valley and Basel medical device workshops, listened to the pain points of craftsmen and business owners, and then reversely promoted the optimization of equipment and processes;
- Risk sharing: During the economic crisis in the 1930s, the team launched the "pay-per-capacity" model — enterprises did not need to prepay the full equipment cost, but paid according to the actual number of qualified parts processed, helping more than 10 SMEs overcome difficulties.
HMS's century-long inheritance is not a "handover of power", but a "continuation of the partner value philosophy" — every generation of family members takes "solving partners' core pain points" as their mission, iterates service forms amid the changes of the times, yet never deviates from the core of "creating actionable value and delivering tangible results".
