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• Processes in manufacturing consist of several tasks to fulfill the customer’s order and receive benefits. Manufacturing requires multiple tasks and these tasks have to be linked. Linking multiple tasks is called a process into a process to achieve the result. Improvement of the individual tasks and processes requires a deep analysis of those tasks and processes. The sequencing of the ind Manufacturing processes involve several steps, procedures, and micro processes to complete critical tasks. The basic concept of production improvement methods like lean, six sigma, data digitisation is to continuously improve through process improvement.

• Process improvement is basically to map and analyze existing processes to remove flaws and improve the process using methodology like data analysis, data digitization, lean, six sigma, customized software etc.,By effective process change, it is possible to reduce lead time, improve productivity, deliver better quality and give better customer experience etc…

• Lead time reduction increases profitability by multiple times. By reducing the lead time from 90 days to 60 days, the company can increase its turnover by 50%, but the profits will most probably jump by over 3 to 4 times. If each task is analyzed and the buffer eliminated, it is not difficult to reduce lead times, especially in the pre production stage.
  Lead time reduction is highly beneficial in terms of higher cash flow, more orders and a strong customer relationship. With improvements in IT technology, lead time reductions have become much easier.

• Broadly lead time consists of
  1. Pre production- merchandising
  2. Manufacturing-production.
  3. Coordination and data analysis.

• Preproduction is done by the merchandising team and starts from receiving enquiry to costing to finalize the specks to getting the order.

• Manufacturing lead time is the time taken to produce and pack the goods and depends upon materials and resources.

• Coordination and data analysis is the most critical to lead time reduction.

1. In the overall digitisation process, each individual operation digitisation gives enormous benefits. Unlike the engineering industry,in the apparel industry there is frequent change of styles, fabric design which makes it difficult for the manufacturing process. Each individual operator to each line to each factory does the operation in different ways, which makes it difficult to achieve targets, line balancing, and managing the operations. Digitisation of operations leads to uniform practice of methods and skill improvement leads to improvement of efficiencies across locations.
2. Operation standardization: most of the garment factories fix targets based on past experience, past data, or international standard data.
3. The operations are not standardized, which means that operators doing the sam operation do it differently in different lines, different locations etc.,
4. There is a big variance in output of operators and the planned and actual production have variance up to 50%+++.
   Benefits of operation digitisation & standardization :
   1. Easily shared.
   2. Everyone gets to understand the operations at the same level.
   3. Operator training and skill improvement gets a big push.
   4. On the sewing line the reason for operators falling below target can be easily understood and solved.
   5. Efficiency increase up to 30% is possible.

1. Line balancing is the method of ensuring that machine capacity and operator capacities are used in such a way to get maximum productivity. Normally in a production scenario, different machines have different capacities, and different operators have different skills. Apart from machines and labor, the orders and scheduling of them have several variables leading to idle capacities in certain areas and excess capacities in certain areas.
2. The advantage of dynamic programming software is that it converts the capacities and constraints to a mathematical simulation model and gives us precedence determination/operation sequence, and can quickly balance and visualize multiple lines and multiple operations, loading of multiple orders,and highlights the various hard and soft constraints. Also such softwares gives line balancing production the visual picture on several what-if scenarios, yamazumi charts,, value added analysis, top bottlenecks, real time production reports etc., One can try several heuristic trial and error solutions based on balancing algorithms leading to the total optimal solution.
3. Hourly and real time production data fed into the software will guide the managers to take a considered data based solution and bring in team building.
4. Past data and AI can be used to highlight, The operation with the longest cycle time, The number of preceding and succeeding operations and its effect on the total output, Shortest cycle time, Most suitable operator for each of the operations.

• QUALITY ENGINEERING: In contrast to quality control or QA, quality analyst, the Quality engineers role is to devise systems, procedures to automate quality functions. The objective is to get high quality but with reduced cost to quality and reduced minimum testing, With the garment industry spending close to 14% of sales turnover on cost of quality and going up to 30% for some factories; the industrial engineer has got a big role in quality engineering.
• The cost of quality in Indian garment manufacturing companies done by Rajesh Bheda for the Government finds that on an average 14% of manufacturing cost is for quality and in some cases it goes even up to 30% of turnover. Even many factories do not calculate the cost to quality and are not aware of the cost going down the drain could be around 20%.
• If the cost of quality can be brought down to 6% from existing 14%, the profits of the company can go up by 50%.
• The quality engineer has to work with the quality team and develop checking procedures, methods, documentation and bring in better processes and MIS reports to ensure better quality, and satisfy the buyer and at the same reduce the cost to quality.
• Quality engineering and management is about reducing the variablity in products and processes, quality costs and to provide maximum satisfaction to the customers through improved product performance.
• They work with quality assurance and quality control teams to develop processes, test procedures and implement systems that ensure the products and processes fulfill quality standards, meet safety regulations, and satisfy client expectations…
• Estimated that on an average industry spends 14 % + of sales turnover on quality.
• The first step for the organization is to calculate the cost of quality, which should cover appraisal/checking costs, internal failure costs like rework, repair, scrapping, down grading etc. and the external failure costs like order cancellation, debit notes, loss of goodwill with customers. Once costs are ascertained, we should focus on the causes for higher losses and device systems and processes to permanently overcome such issues.

Most of the garment factories use excel to consolidate production information, identify issues, planning targets, aligning various departments and improving profitability. Such excel reports are many times unreliable with calculation mistakes and copy paste errors and excel sheets are stored in multiple files and multiple locations and are not amenable to multi location multi people working at same time and also is not amenable to analyze long term trends, patterns etc.,or for goal alignment

AUTOMATION OF MIS REPORTS: With advancement in IT technology many of these reports can be automated and , all the diverse files can be imported to a customized software for better utilization of the data in terms of goal setting, data management, goal alignment across divisions, profit improvement. Normally organizations create different departments to do different functions and in reality some of these functions are contradictory. An organization has to establish synergy between various departments and that can be done by proper MIS reports. There are case studies to show that by a single MIS report, companies turn around and make huge profits.
Management reports : MIS helps to identify issues, planning targets, aligning various departments and improving profitability. MIS helps the management to effectively control the production and provides a brief information on various aspects on manufacturing and gives a handle to the management to understand intricacies and connection between diverse data.

Traditionally the process of collecting info from various departments and factories is being done manually and then converted to exel for sharing and better understanding. All of these information is stored in multiple files and at multiple locations and it is difficult to verify and audit the correctness of the data and these exel/files donot help in data analysis.

Automation of MIS reports by

Material handling can be defined as the movement , protection and storage of materials. One of the main reasons for low productivity is the time & effort of the workers involved in transporting, positioning and handling the garments. By use of proper material handling, the productivity can kickstart to a new level. l. Material handling equipment are required for transportation, positioning equipment, unit load equipment and for storage & warehouse. Transportation equipment is required to move goods from one place to another. The positioning equipment is required to position the goods in such a way that production can be done effectively. Unit loading is required to consolidate several parts into one unit and for moving around like bundles etc.. Storing and warehouse is another important area that the IE must focus on for improvement. Latest technologies and affordability are available in areas of storage and in line along with automatic rfid/ barcode systems. Instead of going for ready made solutions, developing customized solutions for movement of materials from one floor to another is very useful.

Operations research is the science of solving problems by developing a sample/mathematical model of a problem and using such sample/model simulation to solve the problems. Practical examples are line balancing , material planning, demand planning, capacity planning, supply chain management, digital integration of supply chain etc. for example planning has to be balanced with available capacity, demand for the product, material availability etc., Normally capacity planning is calculated on the basis of SAM/SMV available and existing efficiency.Material planning on the basis of past data and vendor details.

The problem is converted to a math problem by certain assumptions and then applies mathematical/simulation models like linear programming, assignment problem, queuing theory, transportation problems, game theory to solve problems to solve problems and develop better systems and procedures. Various simulation software are also available to simulate a problem virtually and arrive at solutions. Such models can be used in areas of line balancing, plant layout, process layout , machine lay out etc., Linear programming….., heuristic. The incremental utilization heuristic( trial & error) helps to solve the problem in simulation and apply the same in reality. An important advantage of this heuristic (trial & error) simulation is that it is capable of solving line-balancing problems regardless of the length of task times relative to the cycle time.

• Normally the wip movement and operators working are taken note in pen and paper and later this data is converted into whiteboards or into excel sheets for further actions. Many a times these data are not accurate leading to wrong decisions and loss of production efficiency. With the present digital technology, we can digitize the data at the source of collection and obtain real time information and MIS reports.

• Managing and improving productivity needs to effectively use the resources manpower, machines etc, and the main problem is all these absenteeism, skill levels, material availability are all variables and without proper data,the efficiency drops. Proper planning about the machine capacity, operator capacity, skill levels, operation details, requires real time data for better analysis and decision making to fix scientific data and for all this shop floor needs data to analyze and improve. Unlike in the past, in todays world data collection of data digitally and analysis is much easier and cheaper.

• Most of the garment factories record the shop floor data in pen ,sheets and notebooks. This information is then used for display boards on the factory and preparing exel sheets and MIS reports. Most of the data is delayed and not reliable , so much so the users are not able to effectively use them.

• Digitisation of data requires that, instead of pen and paper, shop floor data is captured digitally through things like tablets, rfid, barcodes, and other electronic systems, at the source and almost on real time.

Some of the advantage of digitization are:
Improved production processes, leading to huge improvement in efficiencies.

1. Real time information to act on production, compared with manual reports which are delayed and most of the time interventions can’t be done.
2. All these dates are available to make MIS reports ,which help the management to take corrective actions and analysis.
3. Long term trends and comparisons can be done as the data is available for several years.
   
   

For any solution we must know the real cause of the problem. garment factories work on the principle that the overall efficiency / productivity can be increased by increasing the individual operator /operation efficiency. To this end each operator is provided with a buffer/wip of pieces, so that operators’ time is not wasted while waiting for pieces.. However in the concept of TOC, as established by Mr.Elia hu Goldratt; the efficiency of the factory depends on identification and improvement of the bottleneck. The following table can explain the difference between TOC model in comparison to the normal model