Difference between Bobbin, Looper and Needle Elastic Threads

Bobbin Elastic

When the elastic thread is used in bobbin to sew garment components, it is known as bobbin elastic. Stitch formation is being done with normal thread in needle and elastic thread in bobbin. This is used to provide gather look in the garment.

This stitch is being done on lock stitch machine only. Elastic thread can be winded (coiled) in bobbin manually or through bobbin winder. This stitch is helpful to provide better strength to seam due to lock stitch features.

Looper Elastic

When the elastic thread is fed via looper to sew garment components are known as looper elastic. Stitch formation is being done with normal thread in needle while elastic in looper. It gives gather look to the garment. This stitch can be done on multi thread chain stitch machine only. Looper is well designed to pass elastic with minimum tension. 

Needle Elastic

In case of needle elastic, stitch formation is being done with elastic thread in needle only while we can feed up to 3 threads through spreader. Looper forms the chain without thread through electrical movement (a magnetic movement of looper to make loop at inner side of ply). This can be done on multi thread chain stitch only. We need to change gather pressor foot and DVK 25 needle to give a good result. Notable we use blind looper in this stitch. This is design known as smocking.

Sample for needle elastic

Blind looper

Eye looper

Spreader

A comparative study of usage of elastic thread in 3 different form and equipment requirement are shown in the following table.

Base of comparison	Bobbin Elastic	Looper Elastic	Needle Elastic
Needle Type	UO113GS DV57(Low Cost)	UO113GS (Both Side thread), DV 57	DVK25, DV 57(Low Cost)
Thread	Needle Thread, looper/bobbin thread while Elastic through Spreader	Needle thread and looper elastic	Needle elastic only
Sewing machine	Normal, multi thread chain stitch m/c	Normal, multi thread chain stitch m/c	Design machine multi thread chain stitch
Pressor foot	Plain/Gather Foot	Plain/Gather Foot	Gather Foot
RPM	2850	2850	1420
Looper	Through Spreader and Eye Looper	Eye Looper	Blind Looper
Gauge Set	Minimum 3/16”	Minimum 3/16”	Minimum 3/16”

How much Computer Knowledge is required for an Industrial Engineering Candidate in Garment Production?

Industrial Engineering department is becoming one of the core departments in apparel manufacturing (at least in garment export houses). Employers are looking for junior engineers and college pass-outs are looking for jobs. In this stage one question asked by both how much computer literacy/skill is enough for the IE candidate. You may name junior IEs as work study officers.

Look at the job profile of an Industrial Engineer (junior level). As we know, all senior IEs (Industrial Engineers) already literate in computers. An IE’s tasks include data capturing, data analysis and report making. In today’s factories all these are done in computers.

Even many garment factories have ERP, IT based data tracking system, MIS systems.

Minimum computer knowledge required for an IE candidate – he should know how to work on word processing (MS Word) and spread sheet (MS Excel/Open Office).

Basic things an IE needs to know on MS Excel are

1. Making tables / formats (Merge cells) in a spread sheet
2. Formatting cells, fonts (color, bold, fonts types etc.)
3. Cut, Copy and Paste text in same file or in other file
4. Taking screenshot and saving it in image file
5. Working with mathematical formulas (like – Sum, average, multiply, divide)
6. Good speed in typing and error free typing
7. Making charts and graphs for statistical analysis (Optional)

Eventually an IE will communicate with his seniors and higher management and other departments in the factory. Departments like merchandising, production, cutting, maintenance, HR departments. So other than excel knowledge, he also needs to acquire computer skill on the following areas

1. Writing e-mail
2. Replying to received mails
3. Making reports (Excel sheet)
4. Working on MS Word
5. Working on MS Power Point Presentation

Exception: In case factories hire junior IE for physical data recording and working on the shop floor for time study then computer skill may not be necessary.

Operation Breakdown and Machines Types Used for Making a Cargo Pant

9 Things an Industrial Engineer Can do to Control Shop Floor Production in Garment Industry

1. Check operator attendance report: 

Why? You can’t keep eye to every operator, if they are starting their machine on the right time in the morning. If operators come late, all minutes will be lost till operators start machine and start sewing. In case someone is absent, you need to find alternative for that absentee.

2. Prepare hourly production report of all operators: 

Most factories display hourly line output report in a white board. That is not enough to control the sewing line. You need to know operation wise hourly production. In case individual production tracking is not possible, collect production data for each sections of a line. Technology is available to perform this task automatically.

3. Analyse lost time 

Major reasons of efficiency loss of a line is lost hours due to lost time and idle time. To reduce lost time you need to measure those. Read this post to learn more about lost time categories.

4. Work on line balancing: 

If you track hourly report for all operations in a line, it will be easy to understand work volume throughout the line. Make line chart or bar graph. On the graph you can clearly see if your line is balanced or not.

5. Check availability of WIP: 

All operators must have enough work (WIP). You have to follow WIP level at line level and operation level. Plan for future (next days) loading. If you know loading plan (style) you plan for other things.

6. Prepare work schedule: 

Though work scheduling is not a common task of an IE, you must have schedule about what all style to be loaded in the line in advance. You should thoroughly study the new style and analysis requirement.

7. Measure line efficiency and labour productivity: 

To know your performance measure line efficiency daily. If possible measure efficiency of the individual operators. By analyzing individual operator performance (efficiency %) you can find low performers. Compare daily efficiency with the target efficiency. Then plan accordingly to improve line efficiency.

Measure labour productivity: Another measure of a line performance is labour productivity.

8. Motivate employee:

By measuring operator performance, you will get to know who are good performers in the floor. Praise for their good work. Prepare a list of monthly top performers and announce their name in front of the management. Other way to motivate shop floor employees is to provide them performance incentives.

9. Measure labour cost per pieces: 

There is a target labour cost per garment for each style. This cost is the amount taken in garment costing sheet for direct labour cost. Your aim should be to beat that target cost and bring down per piece cost. That is why you need to calculate it daily and compare it with the target.

How to Calculate Thread Consumption for Garments?

There is standard formula for determining thread consumption for apparel products. In that formula you will get multiplying factors according to machine type and stitch class. To determine thread consumption you just need to multiply seam length with that factors. This way one can estimate total thread requirement for making a garment.

Actual thread consumption for a unit length of seam depends on following factors. 

1. Stitch Classes
2. Stitches per inches (SPI)
3. Thickness of the seam (fabric thickness)
4. Thread tension
5.  Thread count (thickness of sewing thread)

So you are suggested to calculate garment thread consumption by your own. You can develop multiplying factor according to your product categories and requirement using following steps.

Also Read: Thread Consumption Calculation Process is Simplified

Step 1: To calculate thread ratio, you need a sewing machine, fabric and sewing thread that will be used for bulk production. For fabric and thread you can take similar thickness and same thread count in case actual is not available.

Step 2: Sew a seam of 12 cms long and take 10 cms seam out of it by trimming 1 cm from both edges.

Step 3: Unravel both needle thread and bobbin thread from the seam. Remove crimp from the unraveled thread and measure its length in cm. Generally it will be higher than the seam length. Now find the multiplying factor by dividing thread length with seam length. Assume unraveled needle thread length is 12.5 cm then needle thread multiplying factor is 12.5/10 or 1.25.

Using this method you can find out any types of machines’ thread consumption factors.

Step 4: Once you have consumption factors then it is easy to calculate total thread consumption. Measure seam length of all operations of the garment and get thread requirement by multiplying thread consumption factor. Add thread wastage 5% for the thread that trim out from each ends of the seam.

For quick reference you can follow the following thread consumption ratios. Source: Coats thread consumption guide.

If you want to refer ready made thread consumption factors then refer to Coats and A&E's Technical bulletins.

Different Types of Sewing Line Layout (with Pictures)

Have you designed the line layout in your factory? 

No? All was already set there? You don't need to do anything on designing or re-designing the layout. 

Fine!

Do you know that different types of line layout exist in the garment industry? If you don't know go ahead and read this article. If you already know, you are also welcome to read this post or at least see the images of different types of line layout.

What is line layout?

The sewing line layout can be defined as the way sewing workstations are placed in the sewing floor to form a line (or batch) that works on single style. The purpose of choosing one line layout over other is to achieve best production with existing resources.

The line layout in a factory is not changed frequently. Line layout is designed at the time of plant set up and after that if factory wants to change production system they might need to redesign the line layout. You may reallocate sewing machines while setting line for new styles but you don't change the form of line. 

Different Types of Line Layout

Though there are multiple options of sewing line layout to choose from, most garment manufacturers are comfortable with straight lines having center table in between two rows of machines. 

In this article I will be showing you different types of line layout found in garment industry. This article would not tell you which line layout is good and which one is not so good when compared with others. 

The other common sewing line layouts are as following. 

1. Line with center table and operators facing same direction (Figure-1):

In the line a centre table is placed in between two rows of sewing machines. All operators sit on workstation facing same direction. Operators pick bundles from center table and after stitching dispose bundles on the center tables. 

Figure 1: Straight line. Image courtesy: Denim Experts, Bangladesh

2. Line with center table and operators facing opposite direction (Figure -2)

Machine layout is same as above one. Difference is on operators’ sitting position. Operators sit on the machine keeping center table left side. This layout is more convenient to all operators for picking up work from left side.

Figure-2. Straight line operator facing opposite direction Image source: Stitch World via Facebook

3. Straight line without center table and one raw of machines

In this layout no center table is used for material handling. Instead cutting and finished garments are kept of hangers, on baskets or on trolleys. See the different form of layout where machines are placed in a straight line but no center table is used.

 (a) Overhead material movement (Fig-3): Garment components are placed clipped on hanger. and transported on a rail. 

Fig. 3: Straight line layout with overhead material transportation Image courtesy: Sahu Exports

 (b) Trolley for material transportation (Fig-4): In this layout instead of center table trolleys are used for material transportation. 

Fig-4: Straight line layout with trolleys

 (c) Line having individual disposal basket (Fig-5): Instead of centre table individual disposal baskets are provided to operators. 

Fig-5: Straight line layout with individual disposal basket Image source: Stitch World via Facebook

4. Side by side machine layout (Fig -6): 

In this layout sewing machines are placed side by side. Two rows of machines are faced each other. This type of layout is used for single piece production system.

Fig -6: Side by Side machine layout Image source: Alibaba.com

5. U-shaped line layout (Fig - 7): 

This kind of line layout is used in lean manufacturing. Machines are placed side by side and U-shape is formed to make a line. Operators sit inside. No center table is used. This line layout is also known as modular line.

Fig. 7: U-shaped line layout. Image source: Stitch World via Facebook

6. Modular line layout:

In lean manufacturing, to reduce material transportation and increase the machine utilization sewing machines are placed in such a way that neither it forms a U-shape nor a straight line. Instead machines placed that suits better to work into multiple sewing machines sitting in single chair. I don’t know what the exact name of this kind of layout is. This layout is named as modular layout to differentiate from the above one.

7. Machine layout in UPS system (Fig-8)

This is bonus for you. I found this while searching on the web. Machines are placed in straight line but in an angle. In the other UPS workstation machines can be placed side by side.

Fig-8: Line layout in UPS system Image source: Unknown

Conclusion:

Now it is upto you. You may choose one layout for your factory from the above list. When one layout is selected out of above, you need to consider following fine points

• Space utilization - Space required per workstation compared to other line layout
• Means of material transportation
• Order volume and shipment lead time 
• Production systems to be implemented  

Digital Displays for Production Status - the Improved Way Communicating Floor Performance

How do you check production status of a line?

Ask your subordinate to show you the data or ignore to check minute by minute reports? Or wait for someone to update your hourly production board.

All these methods are age old. Display your reports and dashboard on the LCD screen. This is an effective way to monitor shop floor production. Secondly production status will be visible to everyone who is working in the floor. 

Line supervisor or a production manager has basic requirement about production data. 

• How many pieces are made by the line at this moment since morning? 
• What is the operations wise production? 
• At least production update of critical operation in the line? 

You also need data for the same. If you can provide these data on a digital display board, you don’t need to waste time in report making while you need.

You will say it is not possible to track production of every minute. Checking hourly report or looking into it every half an hour is not possible. 

With the technology advancement it becomes possible. Now it becomes easier to display production status of line real time. Whatever reports you make in spread sheet can be displayed in the LCD screen. Just you need to take how many reports can be viewed in the LCD screen at a time. 

You know the benefits of displaying real time production and quality status to line supervisors and other staff members. I have mentioned it in another post – Use of display boards on sewing floor and its advantages.

If you have technology to capture real time production then, I suggest you to add display board (digital) in the sewing floor. Our clients are using LCD screen to display real time data on the floor.

I have seen factories to use LCD screen to display production status of the sewing lines. Each sewing line has one display board at the end of the line. They display reports based on their need. See example on few display boards.

Production Quantity and Target Quantity Display

This is very simple one. They display line output quantity only. Other things like target production report is entered to the system. The balance quantity to be produced by the line in balance time and line efficiency at this moment is calculated by the system. See the following screen.

Screen 1: Displaying Production and Efficiency of the Line

Line Efficiency Display

Efficiency data can be shown in speedometer or in digits. If you have multiple sewing line in one floor and you like to display data in one display board you can do that. See the screen no 2, the factory is displaying efficiency data for 3 lines. 

Display Production Quantity of critical operations

This screen will give you production of data of the specific operations. It tells WIP level on those specific workstations.

Displaying production quantity of critical operations of a line will help to see balancing of the line. If there is pick and valley in the bar chart, you know that there is balancing issue in the line. See graphs in screen 2.

Screen-2: Efficiency of multiple lines and Production data for specific operations line wise

Display Quality Performance

You are checking stitched pieces at the end-of-line. You prepare quality reports on defects founds and frequency of defects. You do analysis stitching quality in the form of DHU (defects per 100 units) of checked pieces. If you don't share quality performance of the line your reports have no use.

Display DHU and Pareto Chart of defects on the screen. 

Like production reports you can display other data and analysis on the LCD screen. One factory displays only operator hourly report on the screen. That helps them to monitor each and every sewing operator in the line. If anybody is producing below the target can be found easily.

You might ask how to make report on excel sheet. And how to get real time data if you don’t have real time data tracking technology in your company. 

Prepare report templates and punch data on excel sheet and make dashboard in a separate sheet. Then connect dashboard and reports to the LCD screen.

Consider displaying data on screens and place the screen on the shop floor. Make good reports using graph and charts. As data can't be visible from a distance but a chart can be.

Secret Formula for Making Operation Bulletin for Beginners

Making an Operation Bulletin (OB) is not a big deal. If you understand sewing machines and garment operations and can work on Microsoft Excel (spreadsheet) you can make an operation bulletin.

If you are starting your career in Industrial Engineering, you must know these secrets of making operation bulletin and estimating SAM for every garment operation.

Remember, you are not going to make the perfect OB in the initial attempts. You have to practice a lot to become master in making the Operation Bulletin.

Also remember, most difficult part of making OB is estimating operation SAM (Standard minute). If your factory has SAM calculation software (like GSD, SewEasy or ProSMV), learn how to use the software. If you don't have any software, don't worry. As in a recent survey, we found that only 26% companies use PMTS based software for calculating garment SAM. Rest 74% companies don't have such system but they make operation bulletin with estimated SAM and meet the purpose of making OB.

There is solution for this problem too - use Time Study method for determining Garment SAM.

The secret formula is explained in the following. Practice using following guidelines to become an expert in making OB.

1. Collect some operation bulletin sheets from IE department. If you have no access of IE department in your factory you can refer couple of operation bulletins published in this site. 
2. Read the existing OB thoroughly and try to relate operation and operation SAM at 100% rating. Read OB for number of products and cover multiple styles for the same product.
3. Create one OB template in spreadsheet following sample OB. Add formula in machine and manpower column. If you don't have OB format, download my sample OB sheet.
4. Take one garment (sample) and Make Operation breakdown. 
5. Match operations of the sample garment with example OB and use that SAM in your OB. Fill SAM for operations as many as possible. In case you don't find data in the sample OBs, keep it blank for time being. 
6. Wait for loading the style to the line. Do Time study for all operations and do cycle timing at least 15-20 consecutive operation cycles. To get accurate result first study sewing operator - if the operator is doing operation in a rhythm. Neither at slow pace nor at fast pace? If possible select operators who are performing operations at normal pace. After doing time study for few weeks, you will be able to find operators working with normal pace. If you are new to Time Study, seek help from your seniors for learning.
7. From the cycle time, calculate standard minute for sewing operations. Fill the blank in your OB with SAMs determined from time study.
8. Compare pre-filled SAM of all operations with the average cycle time. Does it nearby or there is big variation. If you found a big variation, study another sewing operator. If you still find there is a big gap between assumed SAM and Time study based SAM, replace the SAM in the OB with time study value.
9. Other sections (columns) of the OB sheet can be calculated automatically by setting formula in the excel cells.
10. When you complete of making dozen of OB by above method, you will be comfortable with making an OB for similar operations. If you get new products and new operations, follow above method again. Afterword you will be making OB and estimate operation SAM based on experience. 

Why to use experience based SAM?

I would like share real fact of the industry.

In my first interaction with an Industrial Engineer of a Delhi based export house in 2005, I asked her where she got those standard times written on the operation bulletin. She replied that they have taken standard time for each operation based on their past experiences. They were not using any tool for SAM setting – SAM values are assumption based --- as they are experienced they know what time it should be. Though there might be a question of accuracy of SAM values.

Things are not changed much in last 10 years. As stated above many factories determine garment SAM based on their experience. Why not you?

The No.1 secret for calculating standard time for garment operation is calculating garment SAM. You have to gain experience by doing the job - by preparing OB and observing operators in the sewing floor and conducting time study as much as possible.

Duties and Responsibilities of Industrial Engineering Department

Duties and responsibilities of the Industrial Engineering Head

Following are the responsibilities of IE Head in his company.

• Analyzing the CMT and Productivity details for all new development styles based on garment sketch or samples and provide CMT to merchandising department.
• After order confirmation the evaluated garment is re-analyzed for better and economical methods to reduce the negotiated CMT in order to stay in safe margin. It means reduction of SMV by construction simplification related to seam and method without affecting the actual appearance of sample.
• Releasing style OB, Line Layout and thread consumption chart for line(s) and all factories (having multiple factories) based on scheduled plan 
• Department wise Manpower requirement rationalization based on target strength ratio of 1:0.8
• Co-ordination with planning department for allocation of similar styles, capacity plan, line plan and factory monthly plan based on the history of line and factory efficiency
• Co-ordination with planning department for improving the pre- production activities
• Co-ordination with Factory manager for cut plan and finishing plan based on delivery priority.
• Co-ordination with HR manager for training progress (fresh training and multi-skill training)
• Co-ordination with HR manager to reward outstanding operators based on Skill grade, efficiency and attendance (once in 15 days) 
• Factory audit to be conducted to ensure the IED OB and Layout are followed in line.
• Monitoring and Auditing IE and Jr.IE activities in all the units 
• Factory Production Incentive report monitoring and approval 
• Working on new projects if any and suggesting advanced techniques in garmenting 

Duties and Responsibilities of Industrial Engineer

Industrial Engineers are responsible for the following activities.

• Operation Bulletin (OB) preparation to be done for three stages, Initial Proto Sample and FIT, approved sample and actual OB for layout. 
• Layout preparation for every style 
• Every month machinery requirement plan to be prepared and arrange to in house necessary machine in advance by coordinating with Factory Manager and Planning head
• Arrange to in-house folders and attachment well in advance based on scheduled production plan
• Thread consumption chart preparation and co-ordinate with merchant team for thread purchase
• Skill Matrix updating once in three month
• Updating the SAM Database based on method improvement
• Preparing and updating sampling status based on production plan (PP/size set samples to be ready with approval one week before the style loading date)
• Preparation of factory wise incentive reports based on respective department production and efficiency
• Monitoring weekly performance report of individuals and conduct meeting to improve their performance

Duties and Responsibilities of Junior IEs (Sewing Floor)

Junior Industrial Engineers of sewing floor are responsible for the following activities.

• Three days before the style starts in line, layout should be discussed with Factory Manager and Production Manager and get their signature to implement
• If any changes in the layout is done, it must be updated and change accordingly with the approval of IED – Head
• Requesting machines, folders and attachment requirement well in advance based on scheduled production plan
• Conducting Method study and educate to follow the best method to operators
• Conducting capacity study of individuals and fix their target after 3 days from the style starts 
• Follow-up study (operators who are all not achieving the Target/Capacity)
• Bundle system follow-up 
• Bottle neck operation – identify and eradicate 
• Fixing new tailors grade based on their performance and criteria.
• Developing multi-skill operators based on their individual interest and maintaining skill matrix record.
• List out low efficiency operator and monitor to improve their efficiency
• Measuring line lost hours due to various reasons in sewing floor
• Monitoring and Line balancing – Based on Capacity and WIP in the line
• Helping supervisors in line balancing during high operator absenteeism

Duties and Responsibilities of Junior IEs (Cutting and Finishing Department)

Industrial Engineers of Cutting and Finishing departments are responsible for the following activities.

• Cutting Operation Bulletin preparation
• Cutting capacity checking and manpower allocation depending on the style
• Finishing Operation Bulletin preparation
• Finishing capacity study and manpower allocation depending on style and priority of the order delivery
• Training program of new trainee tailors (15 days basic - pedal control, paper and cloth exercise) to be monitored
• After successful basic training, training exam to be conducted and trainees those scores more than 50 marks out of 100 to be transferred to production line
• Transferred trainee tailors are involved in production floor for a month period and monitoring their daily production and efficiency. During this period, head counting and target are not fixed to them.
• After one month, efficiency curve chart to be prepared and their average efficiency more than 35%, those operators are transferred to line and designated as Tailor grade E (entry level)

Duties and Responsibilities of Data Entry Operator

Data entry operator is also considered as a part of the IE department. His activities includes as following.

• Preparation of daily individual efficiency report 
• Preparation of daily line and factory efficiency report
• Preparation of daily line and factory lost time report
• Preparation of style costing report
• Preparation of MIS Meeting report
• Preparation of incentive working report

Many thanks to Madhaiyan from OCS.
If you are also an Industrial Engineer, you can also share your experience to the IE community.

What are the Reports Made by IE Department in Garment Factories?

Daily Reports

Reports those are made on daily basis are known as Daily reports. IE department prepares following reports on every day.

• Line, Factory and group efficiency report
• Line, Factory and group Lost time report
• Factory wise running style Costing report 
• Daily factory KPI report
• Line, factory and group WIP report
• Individual sewing floor efficiency/Performance report includes operator and helpers
• Individual cutting and finishing efficiency/Performance report includes helpers and checker

Also Read: Tips for Making Daily Production Report Quickly

Weekly Reports

Weekly reports made  by IE department

• Consolidated weekly production against planned
• Consolidated weekly efficiency against planned
• Consolidated weekly Line WIP report
• Consolidated incentive amount working report 

Monthly Reports

IE department prepares following reports once in month.

• Efficiency reconciliation report
• Lost time reconciliation report
• Completed styles reconciliation report
• Individual efficiency report for operator/helper/checker
• Machinery requirement report
• Training center progress report
• Monthly MIS meet report – Factory KPIs analysis
• Styles thread consumption/folder and attachment requirement report 
• Line wise operators’ skill matrix report – once in 3 months
• Group incentive working report

A Typical Day of an Industrial Engineer (Manager) in a Garment Export House

Meet VineetSaini, a manager, Industrial Engineering Department, of a Delhi based leading garment export house. He is working in the garment industry for about 10 years. He started his career as management trainee (IE) and now heading the Industrial Engineering Department.

I often meet with him. Last week I met with him and I took an interview on the common activities he performs day to day basis being an IE manager. According to him there is no fix list of daily activities of an IE. Based on our discussion I have summarized the IE’s routine of a typical day.

In this article you will find how an IE spends his day in a factory.

His office starts at 9:00 am.

After reaching to his cabin, he becomes busy with work. He has shared his activities with time frame.

9:10 AM: He opens his Laptop. Opens his mail inbox, scans all mails and first opens auto generated reports one by one. Common reports are Line output report, Efficiency report. Spends about one hour in reading and checking reports. Reply to urgent mails.

In the mean time he had one cup of tea.

*Checking of mails and replying to mails are whole day's activity.

10:00 AM: In depth checking of the line efficiency reports and find out reasons for low performing lines and talks to line supervisors regarding line performance.

10:30 AM: He spends half an hour for recruiting fresher trainees for sewing operators. He counsels of all candidates those come for joining to the company. He sends them for train-ability test after counseling.

11:00 AM: Looks at production planning board. (This is a weekly activity and scheduled for Monday's activity).

• He spends time on R&D for samples and new styles. For R&D 3 samples are made IE department. Based on the R&D of coming orders, they started arranging sewing machine guides and attachments.
• He allocates works to his subordinates. Works line preparing operation bulletin, calculating thread consumption, Time study, initial line balancing, production line layout etc.
• Daily he receives samples from head office (from merchandisers or marketing team) for labor cost estimation. He analyses sample garments for labor cost estimation. 
• He gives approvals on labor cost and other things that come to him for approval.

12:00 - 1:00 PM: He spends time on the shop floor. He

• gives a round to all sewing lines. 
• meets with line supervisors and operators. 
• visits operator training center and checks with sewing operator trainers how training is going on.
• checks fresher’s trainability test results and pass on the fresher’s list to HR department. 

1:00 - 2:00 PM: Lunch Time

2:00 PM - 4:30 PM: He does follow up of works given to subordinates and with other departments for respective work.

• Checks mails and reply to all mails and makes report if required. 
• Looks at line balancing report

5:30 PM – Leave office for home.

Also Read: Industrial Engineer's Job Profile in the Apparel Industry

Occasional activities

Vineet is also involved in other activities other than daily routine works. Following are such few examples.

• Pre-production meeting – He also takes part in pre-production meeting held in the factory. In PP meeting share his comments of PP samples. 
• He is responsible for project implementation in the sewing and other production areas – like implementation of 5S and other lean tools.
• He analyses factory KPI and make KPI report on the beginning of every month.

What is Balancing Loss in Garment Production?

Prior to loading production to the line (for a new style) Industrial Engineers prepare an operation bulletin (OB) for the style. In the operation bulletin, IE plans calculated manpower and machine requirement based on SAM of all operations (pitch time) and production target per hour (or per day). This is known as calculated (or theoretical) machine requirement. In the calculated machine numbers, fraction of machine number may come but practically fraction of machine cannot be set in the sewing line.

In the operation bulletin, IE also plan actual machine requirement for each operation. See the following image. Where possible, operations are clubbed (where similar machine type is required) for balancing available time per machine and SAM of operations. But for all operations balancing is not possible. That is why in the OB, IE gets variation in between two figures - calculated machines and actual machine numbers. Total variation of the machine numbers for a style is known as balancing loss.

An example: For label attaching operation computerized single needle lock stitch machine is used. Compared to other operations, SAM of this operations is low. As a result target production is achieved in less than given hours. So for this machine/operator doesn't have work for full day. This machine would not be used for other operation too. So line will loss his/her productive time.

For a particular operation (label attaching) balancing loss can be improved by increasing production target. But to meet increased target in one operation, one may loss balancing in other operations.

See in the following sample operation bulletin of a Polo Shirt. Calculated machine number and allocated machine numbers are respectively 26.42 and 29. Variation of machine numbers is 2.58 machines.

Operation Bulletin

Therefore balancing loss for this sample style is 9.78%

How to Calculate Balancing Loss%

Calculation Procedure of balancing loss% for style setting is explained below.

• Calculate machine number based on operation SAM and Production Target per day. For detailed procedure of calculating machine requirement in the OB read this article. 
• (Note: in the above example absenteeism percentage is considered to find number of calculated machines. You might exclude absenteeism in your calculation.)
• Allocate machine to each operation. Only enter nearby round number for allocated machine. (The computed machine is rounded to the nearest integer. Any value less than n.50 is rounded down to the integer "n". Any value equal to or greater than n.50 is rounded up to the integer "n+1". For example, calculated machine number 1.25 results in 1 and 1.70 results in 2.
  For critical operation you might add machines to next round number. Where combined SAM of two operations is below or nearby pitch time, you can consider one machine for those two operations. This way enter allocated machine numbers
• Find the difference between number of allocated machine and number of calculated machine.
• Calculate balancing loss% by using following formula

Balancing Loss% = (Number of allocated machine – Number of calculated machine)/Number of calculate machines

Benefits of Single-Piece Flow Production System

Benefits of the Single-Piece Flow systems are as followings:

Reduces throughput time - Time required coming out pieces from the production line after feeding is quicker than traditional progressive bundle system. Reduced throughput time of an order has many other subsequent benefits.

Quicker response – This system reduces overall lead time for an order processing. Factories can response to market demands quickly.

Faster money circulation - In this system no much inventory is stored and production lead time time is less. Factory doesn't need to block money in lot of material purchasing, transportation and warehouse.

Easier to change product - Setting up a line for new order or a new style is easier in one-piece flow system. Style changeover time is also less compared to progressive bundle system as there in no much WIP in the production line.

Improves garment stitch quality - Due to less throughput time, faults are detected quickly and feedback on stitching quality is given faster for preventive action. Also in lean manufacturing one-piece flow system quality is in-build. This means each operator is responsible for checking quality of the work. No defects passed to the following operations. This way defect generation at machines can be reduced. Secondly when there are fewer defects in garments, quality checker checks a garment in less time compared to exiting production system.

Reduces rework level – Fewer defects mean less rework.

Better quality control – In this system, as any fault is detected within minute of its occurrence garment quality can be managed in a better way.

Improves labor productivity – Productivity in a single-piece flow system is higher than a batch production. Reason – Non-value added activities are eliminated in one-piece flow system. Thus operator can produce more standard hours in the given time.

Better line balancing –Equal work distribution to operators can be done by clubbing low work content jobs. As a result minimum bottlenecks exist in the line.

Involvement of Industrial Engineers in Cutting Department of a Sewing Factory

When it come activities of cutting department, IEs can be involved in the following activities.

Time Study for cutting room activities and setting Standard Time – Cutting room activities like fabric spreading, cutting, re-cutting, ply numbering and bundling can be standardize. Standard time for each activity can be measured. Calculation of cutting SAM is explained in this article.

Making standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all cutting activities – You might know the importance of SOPs for processes and activities to produce desired output. IE department can involve themselves in preparing SOPs for cutting department.

Measuring KPIs – An IE can measure cutting room KPIs. Like marker efficiency%, fabric utilization percentage, cutting quality, and machine and manpower utilization.

Designing cutting room layout - Cutting room layout can be re-designed if needed to improve work flow from one section to another section.

Suggesting good material handling equipment – Good material handling equipment improve cutting room performance; improve quality of cut parts etc. You can find suitable equipment for cutting department too. For example, you can work on improving manual layering method, cutting process and bundling and numbering method.

Finding solution for cutting room issues- There is always scope of improvement in cutting room performance. As an IE you can start practicing problem solving to solve day to day cutting room issues.

Studying and analyzing manpower requirement in cutting room – Scientific calculation of manpower requirement in cutting room is neglected. You can introduce it and reduce excess manpower from cutting room.

Application of IE Concepts in Finishing Section in Garment Factories

Setting of Standard Time (SAM) for finishing jobs (activities)- Like sewing operations, estimate SAM for finishing jobs. Use Time Study method or synthetic data (PMTS) for determining SAM of a task. Prepare operation sheet for finishing section also. By setting SAM of finishing job, you can plan finishing production accurately; you can estimate finishing cost and manpower requirement.

Study existing finishing room workstations layout - Observe if there is scope of improvement for workstation layout. You can apply theory motion economy for re-designing workstation layout.

Suggest a better material handling method to finishing room workers - There is always some scope for betterment.

Work on method improvement - Observe all finishing tasks. Like garment ironing, spot removing, garment checking, thread cutting, folding and packing activities. Study the method of working different activities. If worker don’t follow same methods doing the same task, you can standardize working method for finishing room activities by applying the theory of Method Study. Spend time on improving a method. By improving method of executing a task, you can reduce cycle time of a task.

Maintain WIP in between two workstations – capture finishing production data and calculate WIP. You can work on leveling of workload in each process.

Train checkers and other workers – increase skills of workers by training on their task.

Other things you can start like, making hourly production report, capacity study, efficiency and labor productivity analysis for finishing department.

Difference Between Basic Time and Standard Time

Cycle Time:

Cycle time is defined as the time duration from starting point of a job to the starting point of the next job. This time is established from the observation data of an operator while working at a certain pace.

Example: In a sewing operation, pick up of first piece to pick up of second pieces is cycle time. In cycle time, material handling time is included with actual work time in a machine.

Cycle time = Machine Time + Material handling time.
Cycle time is also known as Observed Time.

Basic Time:

Basic time of an job is determined by multiplying rating factor to the observed time (cycle time). Basic time is also expressed as Normal time.

Basic time = (Observed time X Performance Rating)/100
Or 
Basic Time = (Standard Time - Allowances)

In Basic Time no allowances are included.

Standard Time:

Standard time is the time allowed to an operator to carry out the specified task under specified condition and defined level of performance. This is a standard definition for standard time.
Some additional time is added to basic time to arrive standard time of a task. In practice none can work throughout the day without taking rest. Operators need time for relaxation from fatigue. Various allowances are relaxation allowance, contingency allowance (like machine breakdown) and bundle allowance (for PBS system).

Standard Time = Basic Time + Allowances

The basic constituents of standard time are shown in the following chart. This chart shows how standard time is made up from observed time and basic time of a job. (Click on the image to enlarge)

Chart: This shows how standard time is made up

Conclusion: For a specific task following conclusion can be drawn

• Observed Time may be greater or lower than Basic Time.
• Basic Time is always lower than Standard Time
• To set Standard Time of a job you must add allowances to Basic Time (normal time) 

What is Standard Hours Earned in Garment Manufacturing?

Standard Hours Earned term is not much known in garment factories. Here, Work Study officers or Industrial Engineers working in garment manufacturing factories (Export house or domestic garment manufacturing) don't use 'Standard Hours Earned' instead engineers use Standard Minutes produced or Standard Minutes earned. So when we heard this term first time, we think it might be a different measure.

Let me explain what does ‘Standard Hours Earned’ mean.

This is similar to Standard Minute Produced by workers. Instead of minutes it is presented in hours. To get Standard hours earned value, standard minutes are divided by 60. Like, if an operator works for 8 hours a day and produce garment equivalent to 360 minutes then operator’s standard hours earned would be 6 hours (This is derived from: 360 minutes/60).

Formula for calculating standard hours earned:

Standard hours Earned = (SAM of operation X Garments produced)/60

This term is also called as Earned Hours because operator has earned that many hours by his/her effort.

Benefit of using Standard Earned Hours

- Easy to compare produced hours against available hours in a day (efficiency)

- Secondly calculating earning amount (in Dollar) of an operator from earning hours is easy as you know standard hourly rate of your operators.

Benefits of SAM Based Piece Rate:

Piece Rate negotiation with sewing operators: 

In piece rate environment, piece rate negotiation of operations goes on for two to three days after loading of a style. Until the rate is fixed for each operation, operators work at lower speed than their actual capability. Reason is to show they can't earn much money if piece rate is not set higher. As a result most of the time factory spends excess money in operators payroll. This is the problem.

The solution for this problem is determining garment piece rate based on standard time.

• Measure standard time of operations, categorize operations based on difficulty level and machine type 
• Set per minute rate for each category considering line efficiency factor. 
• If operators disagree with piece rate, explain, and show them how much time to be taken to complete their operations. And how many pieces they can produce in a day if they work in full effort.
• While finalizing piece rate, consider order quantity, style run and product difficulty level.

By this method you can set Piece Rate on the first day of production start. And can avoid initial production loss. (Note: Factory needs to gain experience on IE things to implement this method effectively) .

Accuracy in product costing for direct labor cost part

Direct labor cost is very important part of product costing as lot of labors are involved in making a piece of garment. When you calculate piece rate based on your past experience, you are not always sure if your calculation is accurate. Sometimes you might give your operators excess rate, which subsequently increases product costing. (Indirect labor costs and overhead costs are calculated based on direct labor cost). Your estimation might also be lower than actual cost. 

This will cause high product costing or low product costing. If you cost too high you might lose the order. On the other hand if your cost is too low, you will earn less by processing the order. Secondly, you might need to pay more to your workers than your estimation. 

Solution: You need to work smartly. While making product cost sheet use accurate direct labor cost figure derived from product SAM. Thus you will make more accurate product costing.

Cost negotiation with buyers

Now buyers ask for open costing for orders. Buyers are aware about the minimum labor wages in your region. And they can derive direct labor cost for a product. You might not have technical team but they have to analyze product construction and estimating standard time. In such environment, you will find difficulty adding much margin in various cost categories. 

If you know standard time of a product, factory performance (efficiency) and minimum labor wages you can easily derive direct labor cost of a product (without having Industrial Engineer or work study team you would not get figures for first two). In case buyer pushes you too much for reducing labor cost, you can tell them confidently what is possible and what is not. This is not only used in preparing product price for buyers but it helps you to understand if you are making profit from the order in advance.

Other Benefits of SAM Based Costing

There are many other benefits of introducing SAM based piece rate. When you plan to implement SAM based costing, you are actually setting up Industrial Engineering Cell in your factory. An IE will also perform other tasks of IE department rather than just said objective. As a result you can take advantages of IE department in many ways. Some of those are

1. You can set standard time for products and operations 
2. It would help you in planning manpower and machines in advance 
3. You can measure factory performance and individual operator performance accurately, benchmark your performance level
4. IE tools and methods can be used for productivity and quality improvement 
5. Having product SAM, you can estimate production capacity, do better line planning, and production planning 

Read this post to learn more about IE’s activities.

Action Plan

The next important thing one need to take action on following areas while planning to implement SAM based piece rate setting.

• Understanding Industrial Engineering concepts, and use of Standard Minute in apparel production
• Hire experienced Industrial Engineer and set Industrial Engineering department and IE team. 
• Set Key Responsibility Areas for the IEs
• Develop SOP for IE activities 
• Establish database for operation SAM by measuring time study method or you can consider purchasing MTS based SAM calculating software. 
• Set labor cost per standard minute

Tools and Equipment used by Industrial Engineers in the Garment Industry

In their day to day job, Industrial Engineers (IE) use various type of tools and equipment. What all equipment and tools to use, depend on the job responsibilities of an IE in a company. Name of the common tools and equipment are listed below. Purposes of the tools are also mentioned here.

Stop Watch (Digital or analog): Measuring observed time at the time of Time Study.

Measuring Tape: Measuring length of seams and measuring distances

Picture (Clock wise direction): Digital Camera, Digital Stop Watch, Digital Tachometer, Measuring tape

Digital Camera: Capturing videos for various operations that help in motion analysis of operations.

Tripod for the camera: Used as camera stand.

Time Study board: Required during time study to hold the Time Study format.

Calculator: Data calculation and report making.

Tachometer: to measure speed of the motor of sewing machine. This equipment is use to find machine rpm.

Data capturing and process analysis formats: For example- Time Study format, Motion analysis format etc. Data capturing and analysis to bring improvement.

Various documents: Documents are used to assist production and other processes with information, methodology or layout. Formats are like Operation Bulletin, Line Layout, Pitch Diagram, Hourly report format etc.

Computer: Data analysis, Report making, Mailing, video analysis of operations etc.

How to Calculate Production Target and Worker’s Bonus on Initial Days of Production Start?

Setting Production Target

You might already know the formula that is used to calculate daily production target of a style. If don’t know here it is.

Production Target per day = (Number of operators X Working hours per day X 60 X Line Efficiency%)/ (Product SAM)

There are two problems in using this formula calculating production target on the learning stage.

1. You wouldn't know actual line efficiency – as efficiency will build up day by day up to pick efficiency level. And without past data you can’t assess what would be the efficiency of day 1, day 2 or day 3.
2. Product SAM - assuming that you are not using Predetermined Motion Time System (PMTS) for measuring product SAM. Production capacity is estimated based on time study of the production line. This has been indicated in the question.

The only solution of this problem is that you have to develop database for line efficiency at the learning stage. This period is called as learning curve. Develop learning curve of your lines (style wise, order wise) by studying styles. Measure the trend - how production build up happen and reach to pick production day by day at the learning stage. Once you have enough data on efficiency build up (learning curve) you can make target plan for the future orders. Learning curve may vary depending on order quantity and style difficulty level.

Learning curve (Efficiency% Vs Days) of a typical garment factory for one style is shown in the following Fig. In this learning curve day wise efficiency build up is shown.

Figure: Learning Curve

Similarly develop database for standard time for your styles by using Time Study method.

Now you have both data to calculate production target even at the learning stage. Practice it and write me if find any issue in using the above method.

How to Set Worker Bonus?

You can set workers performance bonus at the learning stage for individual worker or/and for the group without much difficulty. It is the similar method that you use calculating bonus amount on the normal production days. The difference is - in this period the target efficiency% for becoming eligible for earning bonus to be kept lower than normal production. Design day wise target efficiency based on your learning curve. You can keep the bonus amount per point increment of efficiency same. Or slightly more to motivate your operators working harder.

How to Calculate Cost of Manufacturing Apparel Products

Estimating correct manufacturing cost is essential for a successful business. You might be preparing garment cost sheet and need to find manufacturing cost per garment. But don't know exactly how to do it and don't have full confidence calculating the same. Don't worry. Read this post and learn the basic method of determining Cost of Manufacturing (CM) of apparel products.

Cost of manufacturing can be defined as the cost incurred by the factory to run the factory making garments. Factory running cost includes direct labor cost and manufacturing overhead. Here manufacturing overheads are indirect workers wages, staff salary, power and fuel cost, repair and maintenance cost, factory rent, administration cost etc. This cost is also known as operating cost. Cost of Manufacturing is determined for per unit garment.

There are two ways to find Cost of Manufacturing (CM) for a particular style/order. 

1.  Based on Standard Time (SAM) of the product
2.  Based on Daily Production Average

1. CM Calculation Based on Standard Time (SAM) of Product Making

To get better accuracy in cost estimation one should prefer this procedure. But to many small size companies no such resources available to measure product SAM and data for the following parameters. Following parameters are essential for cost calculation in this method.

1. Product SAM: Standard time of the garment. Standard time of a garment is measured by using Time Study and using synthetic data. 
2. Target Efficiency:  Target efficiency percentage is at what % you are expecting running a specific product and order quantity. 
3. Operating Cost per day/machine - Operating cost is factory running cost. Operating costs are all cost incurred to run the business other than material cost. Calculate monthly operating cost and then calculate daily operating cost. Calculate per machine operating cost.

Formula:
Cost of Manufacturing = (Operating cost per day per machine* SAM)/(Target Efficiency% * Working hours * 60)

In the following table an example is shown for calculating manufacturing cost using SAM and Daily Production figure. 

Table-1: Calculation of Cost of Manufacturing

In the  above example, garment SAM is 21 minute, target efficiency 60%. So, actual time would be 35 minute to make a garment. Factory works 8 hours in a day and operating cost per day per machine is Rs. 1022.

Cost of manufacturing is Rs. 74.52

2. CM Calculation Based on Daily Production Figure

This method is widely used by garment manufacturing factories. Cost of Manufacturing  calculation is done based on historical production data. This is an easier method compared to above one.

Information needed to find Cost of Manufacturing

1. Daily production: Find average daily production of a particular style (garment) based on earlier (historical) production figures. Calculate daily average production of the factory. 
2. Manpower involved in production: How many sewing machines or sewing operators are utilized to produce above quantity. 
3. Operating cost per day/machine: As explained above.

Formula
Cost of Manufacturing = (Operating cost per Day / Total garments to be produced per day)

See the example method -2 in the above table. In the example, daily product is 550 pieces. 40 operators worked to produce these pieces. Operating cost per machine is Rs. 1022 per day. 

So cost of manufacturing is Rs. 74.33

Industrial Engineering Procedure

IE Work Flow Chart

Still if you like to know about IE procedures, it can described with a work flow. Most common tasks of an IE are presented in an order in the following.

Style analysis --> Make operation breakdown --> Thread consumption calculation--> Making line layout on paper --> Select m/c and equipment --> arrange guides and attachment -->Planning for production target --> Setting line when new style is loaded --> Do line balancing --> Record production data --> Make production reports --> Report to higher management (P.S. This is just an example of work flow).

Most IE tasks are aimed to make better work flow, improve utilization of resources, increasing factory performance, and reducing production cost. As IE department get matured in a factory, it includes more tools to help production team to increase the factory performance.

Work flow chart of IE department is shown in the following chart. (Click to enlarge image)

Industrial Engineering Work Flow Chart

Industrial Engineer's Job Profile

If you are new to Industrial Engineering fields, read list of jobs done by Industrial Engineers and Industrial Engineering department.

1. Industrial Engineer's Job Profile in the Apparel Industry
2. Role of the Industrial Engineers in Garment Production Management

Implementation Procedure of IE Tools

IE procedure can be explained as the procedure of using Industrial Engineering tools. To learn how Industrial Engineering tools are used by IEs in garment industry read on the following articles.

• Time Study Procedure
• Standard Minute Estimation Procedure
• Operation Bulletin Preparation Procedures
• Operator Training Procedures
• Sewing Operator Recruitment Procedure 
• Thread Average Calculation 

What is the application of Industrial Engineering in apparel industry?

Industrial Engineering concepts are used in garment manufacturing to fulfill the following purposes -

• Monitoring production floor and having better control over the production floor
• Improving processes and improving method of working to increase factory's overall performance and standardized garment manufacturing processes

Overall application of Industrial engineering can be explained better by describing common tasks of the IE department. Coomo tasks of an IE department are as following but not limited to these

• Work measurement of sewing operations, cutting room jobs and finishing jobs
• Setting standard time for sewing operations and manual operations
• Style analysis and conducting research and development (R&D) of the styles 
• Improving method of work and design workstation 
• Production planning and factory capacity determination
• Work aids development
• Work station designing and machine layout planning
• Labor cost estimation
• Performance measuring of workers 
• Training of workers (sewing operators)
• Designing incentive scheme and calculating incentive for sewing operators
• Setting line production target of the sewing lines and chasing production from line supervisors and operators
• Application of lean tools

How Industrial Engineering Concepts are used by apparel manufacturers?

Factories those are using IE techniques mostly have a complete IE set up (department). An IE department consists of an IE managers (in-charge) and Industrial Engineers and juniors engineers. The strength of IE team widely varies based on the maturity level of the department and on the focus of application of Industrial Engineering. Without having enough team members, an IE department can not work effectively.

Industrial Engineers are utilized in the following ways but not limited to those -
Factories apply all or few of the above listed functions to

• assist line supervisors by preparing resource requirement plan (machines and equipment and manpower), line setting and line balancing etc. 
• assist production managers in target planning and production planning, 
• help merchandiser and marketing personnel by providing labor cost and production lead time, 
• help HR department by providing operator performance level, and help in operator recruitment 
• prepare MIS reports and show management team product status on daily basis and alert management team if their attention is needed
• set up standards operating procedures for new tasks, new process required for ever changing fashion products

More than the regular jobs, IEs are also responsible for thinking of continuous process improvement. Initiation of new projects and implementation of the project that has been undertaken, showing the improvement opportunity within the factory to management team. Engineers are involved in performance improvement tasks of the cutting department and finishing department.

Companies those have limited manpower in IE team, only involves engineers for routine jobs like, making operation bulletin, thread consumption, preparing daily production reports etc.

12 Useful Formulas for Industrial Engineers (Poster)

Formula#1:

Daily Line Target = (Total working minutes in a day X No. of operators in a line X Line eff%)/Garment SAM

Formula#2: 

Individual operator target = (Total working minutes in a day X line efficiency %)/Operation SAM

Formula#3: 

Individual operator Efficiency% = (units produced X operation SAM X 100)/Total minutes worked

While you are developing skill matrix for sewing operators, you need measure individual performance. Secondly, if you plan to start performance based incentive scheme for individual operator, measuring individual operator efficiency is essential.

Formula#4: 

Line Efficiency% = (Line output X garment SAM X 100)/(Number of operators X minute worked in day)

Note: include helpers and worker doing manual operations in case you have included SAM of those operations.

Formula#5: 

Machine Productivity: Line output / No. of machine used

Machine productivity is measured in production per machine per shift day.

Formula#6: 

Labor Productivity = Line output / No. of total manpower (operators +helpers)

Formula#7: 

Line WIP (work in process) = Total pieces lie on the line for a particular order line
WIP of the line of an order is equal to Total pieces loaded till date minus Total piece out till date.

Formula#8: 

Standard Time = (Observed time X observed rating) + Allowances

Allowances – Relaxation allowance, contingency allowance

Formula#9: 

Machine utilization% = (Actual Machine running Time X 100) / Time available

Formula#10: 

Cost per minute = Total cost incurred in labor / Total available working minute in a day X no. of labors

Formula#11: 

Production Cost pet unit = Total cost incurred in production in a day/ no. of garment produced in a day

Formula#12: 

Man to Machine ratio = Total manpower of the factory / Total no. of sewing machines (utilized)

Poster: 12 useful performance measuring formulas (Click to enlarge the image).

7 Wastes of Lean in Garment Manufacturing

7 wastes of  lean manufacturing:

7 types of wastes  and non-value adding activities are as following. 

T – Transportation
E – Excess Inventory
E – Excess Motion
W – Waiting
O – Over production
O – Over processing
D – Defects

To make it easy to remember 7 wastes, memorize the word TEEWOOD with initials of 7 wastes. In the following, 7 wastes are explained briefly with examples of garment industry activities.

1. Transportation 

When work is transferred from one place to another is a non-value added activity. Moving cuttings from cutting department to sewing lines, transporting stitched garments from sewing floor to finishing department, Moving garment bundles in the line using center table or trolley. Where transportation can’t be eliminated, think how transportation time can be reduced. By using overhead transportation rail in sewing lines, transportation of bundles or single pieces can be automated.

2. Excess inventory

Inventories of a factory represents those items which are either in the process of manufacturing or idle resources (material) of a factory or materials in stock. And excess inventory means keeping or generating inventory for the following process more than the demand of the following process.

Excess inventory is found in fabric and trim stores, cutting racks, finishing trolleys. Excess inventories are wastes for the factory, as per lean philosophy. Inventory is money. When inventory piled up in stores and on floors, you are blocking your money and are blocking your working space. Even in a sewing line excess work-in-process (WIP) are considered as excess inventory.

3. Excess motion

In workstations where operators sew garments, press-men press garments, workers finish and pack garments, excess motions exits there. Excess motion at workstations is found due to poor training of workers in working methods and habit of working in traditional ways. In the factories where there are engineering department to designs workstation layout, operators may use excess motion due to poor workstation layout.

4. Waiting

This waste is defined as people or things waiting around for the next action. This term has been discussed in an earlier published article as one of the non-productive times in production.

In garment factory, waiting as waste is found in all processes. Like, sewing operators wait for cuttings (no feeding), supervisors waits for final instruction and go ahead for quality approvals. Merchandisers wait for buyer approvals. Waiting is a visible waste in manufacturing as operators and other employees produce nothing while they wait for work or due to other reasons. Few other examples of such waste are – delay in sourcing materials, cutting delays due to fabric approvals and consumption approval.

5. Over Production 

This waste can be simply defined as doing or making things those are not required now. Over production generate excess inventory. In the garment factories, over production is found in cutting department and in sewing operations. For example, if daily production demand from sewing is 5000 pieces, and factory makes/cuts more than that that quantity (demand), factory is producing excess units of garments than needed by the following process for the day (finishing). Over-production cause imbalance in work in process (WIP).

6. Over processing 

This waste can be defined as doing task or adding features to the product those are not requirement from the customer. In garment construction, some operations may not be essential to give the final look and construction. Example: Multiple checking in finishing (initial checking, pre-final checking and final checking).

7. Defects 

Producing defects while making garments are waste of money and effort. As everyone in the factory are aware that no defective garment can be shipped then why to produce defective pieces? Defects in garment manufacturing are like shade variation, wrong cutting, stitching defective garment etc. In case defective garments are made, factory needs to alter and repair those defective garments before handing over to the buyer. Repair work costs money and time. In lean manufacturing factories aim to produce garments right first time. For different types of defects found in garments read this article.

There are various wastes exits in garment factory. I would love to hear from you on 7 wastes and example of such wastes that you have dealt in your work areas.

Method of calculating Machine productivity:

Machine productivity is defined as number of units produced per machine in a given time period. From the daily production and machine used to produce those garments you can measure machine productivity per day. Formula used to calculated machine productivity of a line

Machine productivity = (Total production of a line in a day / No. of machines in the line) pieces per day per machine

For example, suppose a line of 35 machines has produced 280 pieces per day (8 hours shift day). Machine productivity of the line

= 280/35 pieces per machine per 8 hours day

= 8 pieces per machine per 8 hours day

Finding daily line output data and machine numbers would not be a difficult job to anyone. Just for your information - style to style productivity will vary depending on work content of the style. So, you can prepare a database of the machine productivity for the previously produced styles. You can use historical data while required and update your machine productivity after each style gets over.

How to use productivity data in Production Planning:

To explain this I need to repeat few things that have been explained in earlier article. That I don't like. Using productivity figure you can measure following things those come under production planning functions

Factory capacity Calculation:
Suppose machine productivity of your factory for ladies blouse is 6 pieces per machine per 8 hours shift and you have total 400 machines in your factory. So daily production capacity of your factory for ladies blouse would be equal to 400*6 pieces or 2400 piece per day (8 hours shift).

Factory capacity calculation formula of a given product

Factory capacity  (in pieces) = (Machine productivity * No. of running machines in your factory)  

Other planning related tasks those can be performed using factory capacity and line capacity figures are as following -

• Lead time calculation
• Order booking  
• Order scheduling
• Cost per piece

How to Increase Line Efficiency in a Piece Rate Factory?

Most of us believe that piece rate operators are most efficient in sewing. As machine operators are paid based on the quantity they would produce, they will put maximum effort on their work. Hence one can expect best efficiency of the factory having piece rate operators. But this is not always true. Forget about operator’s maximum effort to produce standard hours (SAH) for a moment. And think on other factors those have direct effect to the line efficiency.

Line efficiency depends on couple of factors than only operators’ efforts. Here are few of those parameters -

• Skill level of the operators
• Line balancing 
• Worker motivation

So to improve the line efficiency (or individual operator efficiency) you can work on the above points

# 1. Skill Training for low performing operators 

Work on training your operators. Use following method to improve operator's skill level.

1.  Measure operator’s individual efficiency 
2. Make a list of low performing operators (i.e. operators working at less 50% efficiency). 
3. Observe your operators while they are working and study their method of performing a jobs and movements.
4. Check what are the unnecessary motions / movements you found operators are using at the time of sewing. 
5. Train them correct motions and give them time to practice. 

Once you improve operator’s sewing skills you will see improvement in line efficiency. If you don't know how to train sewing skills to your operators you can hire an expert.

Here I would like to share Paul’s story on skill improvement for low performing experienced operators. This story will explain you that through training you can bring lot of improvement operators earning and line performance.

“Paul Collyer was working as trainer in a garment factory, in UK. He trained a girl how to train operators and build sewing skills. Once she was trained completely, Paul sent her to the sewing floor to find out low performing operators and improve their sewing skills through training.

In that factory most of sewing operators were working for many years. So they were experienced to their job. Operators were paid based on number of pieces they were producing. The factory was running piece rate system.

As instructed by Paul, the young lady went to every operators and studied operator’s performance. She set a method to train low performing operators. When she spoke to experienced operators for the training, they ignored her. Few so called experienced operators used to tell her that they are working for 15 years and they know better than her. They were in the age of her mother. They don’t need to learn anything, at least from the young trainer. The young lady became upset and reported back to Paul. Paul knew this would happen. He told the young lady, “don’t worry, go to operators who have recently joined and improve their skills”. She did the same. 

After several weeks of training, new comers started earning more than the experienced operators. Experienced operators were not able to earn as much as newcomers were earning with their full effort. All the experienced operators got surprised and they acknowledged the benefit of skill training.

All experienced operators who earlier ignored for skill training, met Paul and requested him to send the young trainer to train them better skills so that they can also earn more money.”

I hope now you understand the power of training. There is always scope for improvement. The same way you can improve your line efficiency in your piece rate factory.

 

#2. Work equalization or balancing of the line.

To produce more pieces, operators must have feeding full time so that they can continuously run their machine. In piece rate factory you may have unbalanced WIP. Work on improving line balancing to improve line efficiency. Read my earlier post on line balancing - How to Balance a Traditional Sewing line?

#3. Performance Incentive

In piece rate production system it is considered that operators are self-motivated in term of their earnings. But sometimes operators do not know their hidden skills and capability of earning more that the current earnings. Implement performance based incentive for piece rate employees also in combination with skill training. You can set differential piece rates for different level of individual operator efficiency. You can also linked performance based incentive based on line efficiency instead of individual operator efficiency.

How to Plan Daily Line Output from Garment SAM?

You need information (figures) for the following parameters.

• Day of production: In case you want to plan for most appropriate production figure you have to day of production. I mean, the no. of day after loading of the line. Due to learning curve on the initial days of line loading your line efficiency will be low compared to average line efficiency. If you just want to plan average production you consider average line efficiency%. 
• Average line efficiency% on the day of the production: Use line efficiency for the production day according to the learning curve chart. 
• No. of machine (manpower) allocated to the line 
• Daily working hours 

Formula for the estimated production (daily) 

= (No. of operators * working hours per day * 60 * average line Efficiency%)/ Garment SAM

Example: Assume that you are making a style of 20 minutes SAM. And details of the above listed parameters are as the following

• Day of production: 4 
• Line Efficiency on day 4: 46% 
• No. of operators: 32 
• Daily working hours: 10 hours

Therefore estimated line output will be

= (32 * 10 *60*46%)/20 pieces
= 441.6 pieces or 442 pieces

How to make the calculation easy

You can make the above calculation easily by using following steps. You don't need to work on excel sheet to find the planned production for the day. Just use following steps and get the production figure. 

1. Calculate total minutes per day per operator - 600 minutes (assume 10 hours a day working) 
2. Calculate production per operator @ 100% - 600/20 pieces = 30 pieces 
3. Calculate production per operator @ actual line efficiency - 30 * 50% (assume avg. line eff. is  50%) = 15 pieces
4. Calculate production by the line of 32 operators - 15 pieces/ operator * 32 = 480 Pieces.

KPI Dashboard: An Effective Reporting Tool for Garment Factories

The present reporting system is likely as following:

You prepare reports on production status of all departments. In the morning you mail those reports or give printed copy to your managers.

And managers are supposed to review all reports. You made a detailed report thinking that your manager should aware of production status from cutting to finishing, performance level of each department, each sewing lines and style wise cost per piece, and details of orders those are slipping from deadline.

Ask yourself.

Do they need the detailed tables of thousand of numbers on each of 10 reports to read line by line? You know exactly what figures managers actually looked into. Show then those figures only.

Normally managers just look into key figures. Even if they want read all reports they can’t do that because it would consume lot of time. Instead of reports they would prefer to call you and ask for reasons when they find any issue in the report.  

So, why you are wasting your time making long reports and wasting papers for printing those long reports daily morning?

In this post, I will show you how to make your production reports effective as well as more interesting. You can make a short report using one of the following methods -

First Method: Instead of 6 to 10 page reports prepare one page report with important data and numbers.

Second Method: Just make graphs of each analysis and status report and write down key issues that need to be looked into urgently by higher management.

Third Method: Prepare report dashboard including all production reports. I call it KPI Dashboard. See the sample KPI dashboard in the following image.

Instead of printing multiple reports make one dashboard and send the dashboard via e-mail. Such keyboard displays everything that need to be communicated.

KPI Dashboard (Click on the image to enlarge)

On the above dashboard I have included 6 graphs. From these graphs you can check status and factory performance.

How I made this Dashboard

I have made one template for data entry and graphs on excel sheet. Collected data required for following reports and entered into the template. 

• KPI-I: Department wise yesterday’s production Target Vs Actual Production

• KPI-II: Line wise machine productivity and efficiency figures of the last production day

• KPI-III: Line wise production and WIP reports

• KPI-IV: Style wise production of all lines 

• KPI-V: Quality Report (Sewing and Finishing DHU)

• KPI-VI: Earned Vs Make-up% of the sewing operators

Once data entered, I get all graphs on the excel template. Graphs are then copied in a Power point slide. My dashboard is ready.

Method of Calculating Cost per Minute of a Sewing Line

Cost per minute of line is calculated only for direct labors. Direct labors like sewing operators, helpers, line supervisor and quality checkers.

There are two types of  Cost per Minute of a sewing line -

1. Estimated cost per minute of a line and
2. Actual cost per minute of a line

As you did not specifically ask which one you need, I am explaining both.

1. Estimated cost per minute of a line: 

To use this calculation your operators need to be salaried. Formula used to calculate Estimated cost per minute

= Total salary of a line for one day / (Total minutes available*Line efficiency%)

To calculate total salary of a line includes all operators, helpers working in a line. You can also include Quality checkers and line supervisors and feeder if they are not considered under overhead. So, you have to find following three parameters to calculate estimated cost per minute of a line.

1. Total salary of a line for one day 
2. Total minutes available 
3. Line efficiency% 

Where, Total minutes available = Number of total labors *Daily working hours *60

An example:

Total estimated salary of a typical line is INR 6000.00 and total manpower 20 of a 15 machines line and line efficiency 40%
Cost per minute of the line = (6000 / (20*480*40%)) = Re 1.56

2. Actual cost per minute of a line 

Formula used to calculate actual cost per minute of a line

= (Actual salary for the day/ (Total garment produced * SAM))

So, you have to find following three parameters -

1. Calculate actual salary of all operators and other direct labors working on the line in a day
2. Total pieces made by the line
3. Garment SAM of the running order

An Example: 

Assume that total actual salary of a typical line is INR 6000.00, the line made 400 pieces and garment SAM 22 minutes.

Therefore,

Cost per minute of the line = (6000 / (400 * 22)) = Re. 0.68

8 Preferred Lean Manufacturing Tools for Garment Industry

#1. 5S: 

5S is about sorting of things in your workplace and inventory stores. Keep workplace and floors clean and arrange things in right order for easy access.

#2. Visual displays: 

Use visual displays as much as possible to communicate with people working in the factory. Display necessary information for quick access. Production board at the end of the line, Mocks of sewing operations at each work stations, quality inspection procedure on the quality checking tables, displaying right and wrong product, displaying exit sign and labeling every items are few example for visual displays factories can easily adopt.

#3. Standardization of work process: 

One core objective of lean manufacturing is elimination of manufacturing wastes and non-value added tasks from the internal processes and systems. For this factory has to set standardized working method. When one follows standard working procedures, there is minimum chance of making errors.

#4. Quick Changeover: 

Quick changeover, one of the lean manufacturing tools, is used in reducing waste in garment making process. While setting a line with new styles, line losses lot of time which is known as set-up loss. Quick changeover or SMED method provides efficient way to set lines for new style in less time.

#5. Error proofing: 

Error proofing aka Poka-Yoke is any mechanism in a lean manufacturing process that helps an equipment operator to avoid mistakes. It helps in designing a process in such way that there would not be minimum chance of producing defective product. Its purpose is to eliminate product defects by preventing, correcting, or drawing attention to human errors as they occur. Even error proofing technique can be used in information generation, reporting system.

#6.Kanban: 

Kanban is a workflow system. Kanban tool improves visibility and limit Work in Process. Where factories use Kanban, it helps to eliminate building excess work in process (WIP) in production lines.

#7. Problem solving: 

Clothes are ever changing product. A garment manufacturers need to work with latest products, new material and machines. When one does something first time there may be a chance of having problem. You have to short out the problem to meet your business goal. Problem solving tools helps you and your team to find possible solution without external experts. Ishikawa’s Fish bone diagram method and 5 Whys are two famous tools widely used in problem solving.

#8. Workload balancing: 

In mass production, garments are made in a line where numbers of operators involve making a single garment. A balanced line means every operator has workload and nobody sit idle without work. This maximizes operator utilization. And as a result you get maximum output from a line. It is not only sewing line, workload balance is required everywhere in the company – like department to department, process to process workload balance. 

Necessary Production Reports for a Garment Factory

In a garment factory, production manager’s day starts with production reports. Production manager enters to factory floor with questions such as -

• How many garments are made last production day by each line? Compare actual production with production target given to the floor in-charge and line supervisors. 
• What were the issues for low productions? Why too much quality issues?
• Who is responsible for not achieving yesterday’s target? 

Production managers get answers of their question in reports with data.
In this industry, line supervisors are very smart to tell you numbers to show good line performance and hide their shortfall. So, instead of discussion and verbal reports most of the managers believe on written and printed reports.


To know factory’s day to day performance very well what all production and production related reports must be made and reported to higher management? Each factory has their own set of policies and system to run their factory. So, list of production reports may vary company to company.

There are few common reports; those are widely used and are very important to know your business well. In this article, I have listed down such reports and explained the purpose of those reports. All reports are related to production. Few reports are information based and others are analysis and performance based.

#1. Operator Attendance Report:

This report explains how many sewing operators; helpers are present today in each line. From this report managers quickly assess, what would be today’s production target. Which lines have shortage of operators and where there are enough operators and from where some operators can be shifted to another line to fill all lines and run production smoothly? Operator attendance report is an important one to floor in-charge. Yesterday’s operator’s clock-in and clock out report is also important to see whether all operators worked full time or not.

#2. Daily Production Report (DPR):

Daily Production Report contains yesterday’s production records line wise and style wise. Production information in term of –

• How many cutting has been loaded to each line yesterday and total loading done to a particular from loading of the style? 
• How many pieces has been stitched yesterday and cumulative production till-date of all styles those are currently loaded. 
• How many pieces have been dispatched to finishing or washing department? 

Daily Production Report. Click on the image to enlarge.

• Form daily production report managers can assess, whether a line is producing as per target or production is getting delayed. 

#3. Hourly Production Report:

This report carries information of today’s hourly production. In this report line’s output is being updated hourly or bi-hourly. This report helps line supervisors to chase operators when line output goes down. Where production data is recorded manually, only line output data is captured and displayed on production board. But factories those use real time production monitoring system, operator wise /operation wise hourly production data can be viewed. I have shown one such report for example in the following image.

Hourly production Report. Click on the image to enlarge.

#4. Efficiency and Productivity Report:

The daily production report provides actual output numbers of each line and each style. Line output is directly proportional to number of manpower in a line. If you have two different styles (of different work content) running in two lines, performance of those line can’t be compared with output figures. The easy way to check line’s performance is measuring line efficiency and machine productivity irrespective of styles, number of manpower and number of machine used.

#5. Manpower and Machine utilization Report:

Manpower and machines are primary resources of a company. A Manager need to look into resources to check how company resources are get utilized? Factory should not have excess manpower on the floor. On the other hand factory must have minimum required manpower to a factory to produce goods according to the plan. Both the manpower and machines are cost to the company. So it is import to check this report daily basis.

This report may also include number of employees who were present in overtime work hours?

#6. Garment Inspection Report:

Inspection report comes under quality report. But garment inspection report is also one important report for production manager and top management to monitor stitching quality of products. As all produced garments are not acceptable if certain quality level is not maintained. It is production department’s responsibility to produce quality product. Inspection report displays line wise defects per hundred units (DHU) and percentage defective data, total pieces send for alteration/repair.

#7. Repair and Rejection Report:

This report contains information such as – style wise and color wise defective garments produced by lines. Defect wise no. of garments is sent to repair section and number of garment received from repair section after alteration. This information is essential because in case you have number of damaged or rejected garments, you can cut and sew fresh garments and replace those damaged garments prior to final inspection.

#8. Cutting Production Report:

Cutting department’s production status is also an important report to be looked into by production manager. Style wise and color wise cut quantity is checked. Sewing line can be fed with cuttings only when there is enough cutting in cutting store. Looking into cutting plan what all fabrics are going to cut today for following day’s feeding?

#9. Material Inventory Report:

Once status of production, efficiency, and quality report part is over, managers looked into material availability status. You know that materials are the one major reason for shipment delay and breaking the production schedule. This report carries information such as fabric and trims in-house status in details with expected in house date for balance materials. Managers chase with merchandising and sourcing department for sourcing material on time.

What is GSD System?

General Sewing Data (GSD) is a PTS (Pre-determined Time Standards) based time measuring system. As per GSD official site GSD system can be explained as –

 “GSD provides a scientific, ethical and auditable approach to quantifying manufacturing methods, times and costs and accurately and consistently establishes International Standard Time for complete products (styles), or individual product components (features). GSD provides the ability to establish and quantify each step or operation in the manufacturing process”

How can I find SAM or SMV or Standard Time by GSD? 

First of all if you want to determine standard time (SAM or SMV) using GSD system, you have to purchase GSD. Once you purchase, GSD will provide you training on how to use the system, how to study sewing methods and measure standard time based on motion analysis and TMU value of each motion codes.

How can I use it for my production?

There are multiple benefits of using GSD system. If you are concern about production, GSD system can help you meeting following goals

• You can set standard time of your product (each individual job/operations) to measure and improve performance. 
• For line capacity planning and line balancing based on standard time
• In reducing operation cycle time by improving method through motion analysis
• You also can standardize your method across the production line.

How to Prepare Monthly Efficiency Report of a Sewing Line?

To know monthly efficiency calculation method, read follow steps.

Step 1: Efficiency calculation formula

There is a standard formula to calculate efficiency of a line. The efficiency calculation method has been explained in another article, How to calculate efficiency of a production line? Please refer that article in case you need to know details. Otherwise just follow following formula.

Efficiency is a ratio of total minute produced by line and total minutes available to the line. Efficiency is measured in percentage form. 

Line efficiency% = (Total Standard minutes produced by a line / Total minutes available to the line) X 100 

Step 2: Prepare Monthly efficiency calculation table on spread sheet (Excel Sheet)

To track monthly production data and manpower details create one table on excl sheet as following that includes information 

• No. of operators (include helpers if manual SAM is added to your Operation Bulletin) working in the line
• Total working hours per day
• Total garment produced by the line at the end of the day and
• Standard Minutes (SAM) of the style that is produced by that line

Also add columns for date and styles for reference.

Add three more columns on right side of the table and add formula into the cells of those columns as following

• Total minutes available ( No. of operators X working hours per day X 60)
• Total standard minutes produced (Line output X Garment SAM)
• Efficiency% (Total standard minutes /Total available minutes) * 100

Add 31 rows in the table after table header. Add dates from 1st to 31st on the first (date) column. 

Image-1: Monthly efficiency report (Blank sheet)

Add one more column for monthly totals.

Now your monthly efficiency calculation sheet is ready. See image-1: Blank efficiency report sheet.

Step 3: Data Capturing

At the end of each day fill this sheet date wise with actual information of manpower, working hours, production in pieces and garment SAM. 

When month ends, you will have a sheet filled with 31 days data. Exclude or keep blank for holidays and weekly off days. See image – 2.

Image-2: Monthly efficiency report (Filled sheet)

Step 4: Monthly efficiency of a line

In the row of monthly totals, you have whole month’s data of total minute produced and total minutes available to the line. On the efficiency column you will have monthly line efficiency. 

In the above example:

Total minutes available : 751800
Total standard minutes produced : 202953
So, Monthly Efficiency this line is= 27 %

How to calculate Floor Efficiency?

Now if you have multiple lines in a floor and you to calculate average efficiency of the floor then use following steps.

Step 5: Calculate total minutes available to the floor

• Create same sheet for each line as shown in image-1. 
• Fill data line wise. Sum line wise monthly available minutes to calculate total available minutes for a floor. 

Step 6: Calculate total standard minutes produced by the floor

Sum up all line’s line wise standard minutes produced to calculate total standard minutes for the floor.

Step 7: Calculate floor efficiency

Finally use efficiency calculation formula to calculate sewing floor efficiency. 

For example: You have four lines in one floor and line wise efficiency are as following.

Table: Floor efficiency

Ratio of Sewing Machines used in a Shirt Factory

Machine ratio is normally calculated from daily production target (quantity) and product styling.

Where, production target is linked with following factors

• Line Efficiency
• No. of worker (Sewing operators + helpers)
• Product SAM
• Daily working hours
• Order quantity
• Product difficulty level

You have already decided total number of machines that you would purchase i.e. 30 machines. In an earlier post How to Determine Machines Requirement for a New Factory?, I have shown how one can calculate machine requirement from product with example of four basic product. (Shirt, Trouser, Tee and Polo). In that post, I have shown, how to calculate machine numbers for daily fixed production target.

Based on that calculation you will be needed following machines:

• Single Needle Lock Stitch (Plain with/ without UBT) = 24
• Single Needle Lock Stitch machine with Edge cutter =2
• Multi-needle Chain Stitch Machine / Kansai (Optional) = 1 
• Feed-of-Arm (optional) =1 Or 5 Thread over lock = 1 
• Button stitching = 1
• Button holing m/c =1

In case you want to add other type of machines (i.e.special machine) then consider to replace that machine with single needle lock stitch machine or respective operation.

How to Calculate Helper Requirement for a Sewing Line

Following are the guidelines that will help you to decide how many helper you need to hire irrespective of line   strength.

1. Go through your operation bulletin and check how many jobs / tasks do you have that required helpers (like marking, trimming jobs), for some manual task you may need multiple helpers.

2. Check feeding procedure: To feed cutting to line do you need any helpers? If yes, do you need one person for each line or one person can feed cutting to multiple lines? Calculate number of helpers based on your requirement. 

3. Matching of parts: In many styles part matching is required prior to feed parts to assembly section to eliminate shade variation and size mixing. 

4. Shorting of bundle: Do you need to short bundles in the line?

5. Hand work: Do your style demand person for handwork? 

6. Thread cutting: It is not a good practice but would like to mention here that three years ago I have seen factories in Bangladesh, where helpers are hired to assist sewing machinist to cut sewing thread. Do you have such practices in your factory?    

When you required to estimate total no. of helper required in a line follow above guidelines. You will get an approximate number of helper. 

What is Non-Productive Time (NPT) and How to Track NPT?

NPT in Industrial Engineering term is Non-Productive Time. Time that is spent by an operator without producing any garment (standard minutes) like 'set up time' is called nonproductive time. In garment production Non-productive time is measured to analyze how much standard time is lost due to machine down time. A report is made by recording machine down time or lost time is called NPT Report. And this is as essential MIS report where factory value each standard minute of its operators.


In an earlier post I have discussed 4 major non-productive time. In this article I will show you how factories capture NPT and make NPT report.

In most factories, Industrial engineers are responsible for recording and analyzing line wise NPT for the factory. Mostly printed formats are used to record non productive time. How much time is lost in a line is recorded as because, operator wise NPT recording is near to impossible in manual tracking. Non-productive time includes those criteria where major time lost.

Lost time is recorded to show management a reason for low production in a particular day or lower line efficiency. Here are few example of lost time.

• Line setting 
• Machine Breakdown 
• Cutting not available 
• Stitching Quality issue 
• Cutting quality problem 
• Power failure 
• Change of Feeding Plan 

A sample NPT format has been shown below for your reference. Reasons of NPT may be different in your factory. So make your own list of NPTs those occur frequently in your factory. For example, operator sits idle due to delay in accessory receiving/approval may frequently occur in some factories and it may not happen at all in another factory. 

Fig: Non Productive Time Recording Format (click on the image to enlarge)

How to capture NPT

Provide a printed format to each line. Make one person responsible (line feeder, work study officer or line supervisor) to record lost time in total man minutes in the format. During production hours whenever you see operators to sit idle, find the reasons of not having work (or not doing the task) and note down start time and stop time, as shown in the above sample format. In case multiple operators are sitting idle for the same reason multiply lost time by number of operators to calculate total man-minutes lost and record on your NPT format.

Lost time recorded under the category need to be approved by supervisor or authorized person.

At the end of the day calculate total lost time in each category.

How to use NPT report for process improvement?

Once you have collected lost time report of a line for a period of a month you can analyse and find which NPT parameters are occurring at higher frequency. You will get clear figure how many man hours are lost due to presence of those NPT parameters in the process. All these lost man-minutes can be converted into productive minutes by improving processes and strong production planning. Now you need to think upon reducing the major lost time parameters. Do root cause analysis for occurring lost time and take an improvement project to reduce valuable standard hours.

How to Calculate Cutting SAM?

Cutting SAM can be determined in the same way as you calculate stitching SAM of a garment. In cutting SAM calculation, consider cutting room sub-processes such as spreading, marking, cutting, fusing, re-laying, re-cutting, sorting, numbering and bundling as operations. Whether you like to determine only cutting SAM or all other processes also will depend on you. I have explained procedures for finding SAM for all cutting processes.

Important thing, in cutting process determining SAM of a single piece has no meaning when cutter cuts parts of multiple garments at a time. Whether cutter cuts 10 plies or 100 plies using straight knife machine cutting time will mostly remain same. Primary variables in determining Cutting SAM are layer number in a lay, number of markers in a lay.

To determine standard minutes for cutting jobs I suggest you to go for time study of cutting operations, instead of using MTM2 database (synthetic data).

Determine SMV of each cutting tasks using the method explained in how to calculate SAM of a garment

1. Do cycle time of Jobs (time study for 5 – 10 cycles) 

2. Do performance rating ( Assess how fast or slow the operator doing the job in 1-100 scale) 

3. Calculate Basic time (Basic time = cycle time X performance rating) 

4. Add allowances (machine allowance + personal fatigue) 

5. Calculate standard minutes (SAM = Basic time + Allowance percentages)

 

Spreading SAM

Conduct time study and measure cycle time for fabric spreading. Convert cycle time into standard time. Spreading time will vary depending on layer length (and/or number of markers) and type of fabric. To be specific record spreading SAM based on lay length and fabric type. Also record number layer-man involved in layering. Once you have standard minutes for spreading of a layer, you can easily calculate total time required for spreading a lay by multiplying number of layers in a lay. Refer to the following table to record spreading SAM.

Table 1: Spreading SAM record sheet

Sq. no.	Style No.	Fabric type	Lay length  (meters)	Marker size	No. of layer man	SAM/layer
#1
#2

 

Marker making SAM

Maker making required few minutes and compared to other cutting processes this time is negligible. In case you need to determine marker making SAM and want to add in total cutting SAM, I am showing you how to do it. If CAD marker is used then do cycle time of lying of the paper maker on the lay and fixing the maker with gum tape.

For manual marking determine standard time through time study. In manual marker making time varies depending on garment components, garment size and number of markers. Record the number of persons involved in marker making. Refer to the following table to record marker making SAM values.


Table 2: Marker making SAM record sheet

Sq. no.	Style No.	Garment size	Marker size	Total components / size	SAM/lay	No. of marker man
#1
#2

Cutting SAM

Conduct time study for cutting operation. Total cutting time of a lay will depends on garment components, linear length to be cut for garment patterns, marker size and type of fabric. Cutting time also depends on cutting equipments. Record time study data in the following table. Study cutting time for all sizes in a lay and find average SAM. Cover all sizes in time study. Create database of cutting SAM with different combination of cutting for future use.

Table 2: Cutting SAM record sheet

Sq. no.	Style No.	Fabric type	Marker size	Total components / size	Lay length (meters)	SAM/lay	SAM / Garment
#1
#2

Fusing SAM

Set temperature and pressure of the fusing machine for a certain speed of fusing belt. You can do here reverse calculation. Instead of time study record operator speed for placing cut components (to be fused) in a minute. Once you get production per minute you can SAM per garment (based on number of fused components) by using formula 1/no. of parts fused per minutes.

Re-cutting SAM

Re-cutting is also done by other equipment such as hand scissors or band knife machine than straight knife cutting machine. Follow same procedures of determining cutting SAM for re-cutting SAM. For re-cutting process SAM can be presented per lay or per garment. Also consider whether all components need to re-cut or only few components.

For the other cutting room processes like, Sorting, ticketing and bundling determine SAM as per unit as mentioned in the following table.

Table 4: Units for presenting SAM of cutting processes

	Operations	Units for cutting operation SAM
1	Spreading	Calculate SAM per layer.
2	Marker making	Manual marking: Calculate SAM for each marker. CAD marker: Calculate SAM per lay (Cut)
3	Cutting	Calculate SAM per marker.
4	Fusing	SAM per garment
5	Re-cutting	Re-cutting SAM can be calculated based on number of layers cutter cut.
6	Sorting	Calculate SAM per marker
7	Numbering/ ticketing	Numbering SAM can be calculated per garment. For that first find SAM per component and later multiply how many components are numbered
8	Bundling	Calculate Bundling SAM per marker

In the above tables you collect SAM of different processes in different units. All these standard minutes will help you to determine cutting room capacity or you can calculate how much capacity (standard minutes) you will be needed for an order. 

Initially you need to collect standard time for all cuts to create a database. Once you have created a database with different combination of lay length, marker size, garment sizes you can use SAM from your database for future styles.

20 Ways to Improve Productivity in Garment Production

1. Conducting motion study and correcting faulty motions: There is a saying “Even best can be improved”. So go to Gemba (sewing floor) and look for operator’s working method and movements. Prepare a check list for good methods and movements. At time of motion study observe operator’s movement and compare with you checklist. If you found wrong movements is used by operator or unnecessarily extra movement is present in the operation cycle correct it. If needed deskill operator. By doing this you can reduce operation cycle time and can improve labor productivity up to 100%* in individual operations (*in 20% of the total operations as per Pareto’s 80-20 Principle).

2. Hourly operator capacity check: Employ work study personnel (if you don’t have) and start checking operator capacity hourly or bi-hourly. Compare actual operator’s hourly production with their capacity. If production is less then question them why? It helps in two ways – first, when operator’s capacity is checked at regular interval they will be under pressure. Secondly, work study personnel start thinking on methods how cycle time can be reduced. Using the capacity data, you can move ahead in balancing the line. 

3. Conduct R&D for the garment: A non-value added (NVA) process but having a strong Research and Development (R&D) team in the factory brings lot of benefits. R&D can be taken as preparation stage for the bulk production. This department does sample production and look into potentially critical operations, plan for requirement of special equipment, advice changes in terms of construction without changing styling. E.g. if an operation contains some raw stitches, which doesn’t affect the final look of the garment, then that operation can be avoided if possible to save time. They plan for skill requirement for the operations. As a result production runs without any break or with less no. of breaks. As it reduces the chance of break in production for unnecessary reasons, line productivity doesn't come down.

4. Use best possible line layout: Line layout means placing of machines and center table (trolley with wheel) as per style requirement. The main purpose of choosing a better layout is to reduce transportation time in the line as much as possible. A stable line is not a good idea if you produce multiple products in a same line. A straight assembly line with center table at left side is good for a product that has no preparatory work and individual operation SAM is nearby the pitch time. When a style includes lot of preparatory work (for garment parts), it is better to make garment parts in sections and assemble them later. If possible use overhead transportation system. 

5. Scientific work station layout:  The workstation layout defines from where an operator will pick up work (garment components) and where she will dispose stitched garment. A scientific layout is defined as minimum reach for picking up and dispose of components. Every components and tools (trimmer) must be kept within operator reach. During workstation designing, engineering must follow key principles.

• Components to be worked on should be positioned as near to the needle as possible. 
• Direction of the components where it positioned on the table or track should be such way that during moving component to the needle point does not need to turn it. 
• Placing of work at the same plane of the machine table so that operator can easily slide it to needle point. 

The purpose of designing a good workstation layout is to minimize the material handling time as much as possible. Thus you can reduce operation cycle time. Secondary benefit of good workstation is operators can work at same pace without fatigue. When designing a workstation layout don’t forget to consider ergonomics. 

6. Reduce line setting time: It have been observed that a line reaches at its pick productivity level on day 6-7 after loading of an order. The time lost in the initial days (learning curve) brings down the average labor productivity for whole style. Reason - lot of time is lost during setting of the line for a new style. This reduces overall machine productivity and line efficiency. So to maintain line productivity level you have to work on minimising line setting time or throughput time. To reduce the line setting time, engineers have to study the garment thoroughly, prepare operation bulletin with machine requirement and machine layout plan prior to feeding cuttings to the line. Read another article to know how to reduce line setting time. Engineers need to coordinate with line supervisors and maintenance department with their plans and requirements. This will help supervisors and maintenance department to be pro-active in arranging required resources. 

7. Improve line balancing: Purpose of balancing a line is to reduce operator’s idle time or maximize operator utilization. In a balanced line work will flow smoothly and no time will be lost in waiting for work. At time of line setting select operators for the operation matching operator skill history and skill required. Following this method you will select highly skilled operators for higher work content operations. Once line is set conduct capacity study at a regular interval. Use pitch diagram method to find bottlenecks inside the line. You have to think how you will minimize WIP level at bottleneck operations. Read another article on line balancing for guidelines. Once you start increasing operator utilization through line balancing you will get extra pieces from the same resources in defined time. 

Even a well managed factory can improve productivity by 22% thorough line balancing reported by Md. Rezaul Hasan Shumon, Kazi Ar if-Uz-Zaman, and Azizur Rahman in a  Research Study “Productivity Improvement through Line Balancing in Apparel Industries”. 

8. Use work aids, attachments, guides, correct pressure foots and folders: These are some kinds of time saving devises that facilitate operator to perform their work effectively with less effort. If work aids are used effectively operation cycle time can be reduced many fold than existing cycle time. In new and small factories where there is no experienced technical person (maintenance, IE personnel or production manager) generally not aware about the usage and availability of work aids. So their operators sew garment free hand. Labor productivity is comparably higher for the factories that widely use work aids than those who do not use work aids for the similar products. Folders and attachments are also very helpful in producing consistent stitching quality. On the other hand work aids, guides and fixtures reduce operator’s movement and weight lifting. During my research study I college I had improved labor productivity up to 18.03% using work aids in various operations. 

9. Continuous feeding to the sewing line: It is not a fault of production department if they did not get cuttings to sew. All plans and efforts towards productivity will fail if line is not been fed continuously. “No feeding or irregular feeding” is one of the top reasons for lower productivity in poorly managed factory. Poor production plan, wrong selection product mix in seasons and ineffective cutting department are the reasons that stop continuous feeding. Once operators get the rhythm, they should be given non-stop feeding until style changeover to keep up the productivity. If you know there is unavailability of cutting in near future then plan accordingly and don’t call all operators for that duration. 

10. Feed fault free and precise cutting to line: Stop cutting and trimming of extra fabric from cut components by operators. If your cutter does not able to provide precise cutting s/he should be trained. But faulty cutting don’t be fed. When operators cut fabric he performs additional task in the operation cycle time. If in some cases trimming is intended then that task must be included in total work content. Otherwise you will get wrong (less) efficiency for the operator. Secondly, cuttings with fabric defects, pattern problem are issued to sewing line. As a result line produces defective garments. Alteration and repair work for defective garments reduces labor productivity. 

11. Training for Line supervisors: Line supervisors are shop floor managers. So each supervisor must be trained with fundamental management skills and communication skill. Still in most of the supervisors in Indian factories are raised from tailors. They don’t acquire technical qualification in supervising. But their main job is providing instruction, transferring information. For which communication skill training is required for supervisors. Secondly, supervisor should understand the fundamental of industrial engineering like operation bulletin, skill matrix, workstation layout, movement, capacity study and theoretical line balancing etc. If they understood these, they can help engineers or work study boys to improve line performance. The above training will bring changes in managing and controlling the lines and will improve labor productivity. 

12. Training to sewing operators: Operators are main resources in the apparel manufacturing. They are most valuable resource to the company. So, factory must work on developing operator skill where required. “Training is not cost but an investment” said by many experts. Production from an operator depends on his skill level to the task. A low skilled operator will consume higher resources (time) and give less output. You will find quality related issues with low skilled and untrained operators. As the skill level of the operators is increased through training lines output will improve. Training does mean lot of time and money. Training should be given only on specific tasks that will be performed by the operator. Paul’s article “systematic training for apparel industry operators – an introduction” is very helpful in this regard. 

13. Setting individual operator target: Instead of giving equal target to all operators working in a line, give individual target as per operator's skill level and capacity. Set an achievable target for each operator so that they would try to reach the target. This will help improving operator’s individual efficiency. Use tricks for increasing target step by step. Take care of the operators who are under target. They may need skill training. Go back to point#12. Training for sewing operators. 

14. Eliminate loss time and off-standard time: Utilize operator’s time as much as you can. There is no better alternative than just stopping operators sitting idle to improve operator productivity. Non productive time such as waiting for work, machine breakdown, power failure and repair work kill your productivity. Start eliminating non-productive time as much as possible. To start work on this point you have to track off-standard or non-productive time data according to different categories. Once you have the analysis and Pareto of non-productive time you can think and plan on reducing it. 

15. Real time shop floor data tracking system: For the continuous improvement and prompt action on failure you need information from the shop floor as fast as possible. Important information needed such as hourly production, line balancing, WIP, tracking bundles and quality performance of the line. If corrective action is not been taken early problem may increase as time goes. So RFID based real time systems are helping in providing shop floor information within second. With Leadtec system JoshepAbboud increased its total productivity more than 40% (refer to the following case study link). This system is quite costlier at this time. But as per published case studies ROI (12-18 months) of this RFID based real time system is not bad. 

16. Using auto trimmer sewing machine (UBT):  Just think how many pieces an operator is producing in a day? Each time an operator trims thread using a trimmer or scissors consume time minimum 50 TMU or 2 Seconds (approx). A rough estimate, in a day operator will lose about 20 minutes just in thread cutting. In an operation of 0.5 SAM, operator can make 40 extra pieces. Even machine without auto trimmer consumes more sewing thread. Those who use heavy (half kilogram weight) scissor may start using hand trimmer. 

17. Installing better equipment: A low performing machine is not acceptable where some of your good machines are idle in the same building. Use the best of your resources. If machines or equipment don’t perform well operator motivation goes down. Repetitive breakdown of machines increase the loss time and bring down overall line efficiency and labor productivity. I have seen lines where UBT machine is used in long seam operations and comparably lower work content. On the other hand where shorter seams are being stitched, most of the time spent in thread trimming for taking out work from the needle, normal lock stitch sewing machine are used.  

18. Inline quality inspection at regular interval:Traffic light system is the most effective inspection tool to reduce defect generation at source. Less number of defective seam is made less the time will be lost in repairing it. Inline checking system will alert operators in concentrating their job. It also helps in other way. May be at the start of the style an operator not understood the specification, an interaction with quality inspector will make an operator clear about the quality requirement. Poorly managed factory loses productivity up to 10% due to repair and reject as mentioned by Dr. Bheda in his article  “Productivity in Apparel Manufacturing”. 

19. Operator motivation: Operator’s will is the most crucial part in productivity improvement. If they are motivated, they will put enough efforts on the work. Employee motivation generally depends on various factors like work culture, HR policies, bonus on extra effort or achieving target. In garment manufacturing operator’s motivation come through extra money. Operator motivation can be improve by sharing certain percentage of you profit made from operator’s extra effort. 

20. Plan for operator’s Incentive scheme: Paul Collyer, British expert says “In British factories, in a non incentive environment factory can reach up to 80% efficiency level and if manager expect more than that they had to provide incentive to operators as well as to the supporting team”. If we look into Asian factories, in a non incentive environment factories find it is very difficult to reach up to 40% efficiency. You can see the potential efficiency that can be converted in money. 

How to Calculate Production Capacity of a Factory?

A factory’s capacity is presented in total minutes or hours or in pieces (production per day). The method used to calculate capacity has been explained in the following. To calculate Daily production capacity (in pieces) one needs following information.

1. Factory capacity in hours
2. Product SAM
3. Line efficiency (Average)

1. Calculation of factory capacity (in hours): Check how many machines factory has and how many hours factory runs in a day. For example suppose, 

Total number of machines = 200
Shift hours per day = 10 hours
So total factory capacity (in hours) = 200*10 hours = 2000 hours 

2. Calculation of Product SAM (SAM): Make a list of product category that you manufacture and get standard minutes (SAM) of all products you make from work study engineers. If you don’t have product SAM then calculate the SAM. Or you can use average SAM of the products. Suppose you are producing shirt and its SAM is 25 minutes.

3. Factory Average Efficiency: This data is collected from industrial engineer. Or calculate it with historical data. Suppose average line efficiency is 50%. Read the article - How to calculate efficiency of a production line or batch?

Calculation of production capacity (in pieces): Once you have above information use following formula to calculate production capacity. 

Production capacity (in pieces) = (Capacity in hours*60/product SAM)*line efficiency 

For Example: Suppose a factory has 8 sewing lines and each line has 25 machines. Total 200 machines and working shift is 10 hours per day. Total factory capacity per day is 2000 hours (200 machines * 10 hours). If factory is producing only one style (Shirt) of SAM 25 minutes and used all 200 machines daily production capacity at 50%

= (2000*60/25)*50% Pieces
= (2000*60*50) / (25*100) Pieces
= 2400 Pieces

[Note: Production will vary according to the line efficiency and during learning curve or in the initial days when style is loaded to the line] 

Production (capacity) planning is normally done based on sewing capacity. Having knowledge of the capacity in other processes (internal or external) is also very important. Otherwise planner may fail and will not be able to meet the dead line. Other departments such as Cutting room capacity, Finishing room capacity, Washing Capacity and capacity of the value added jobs.

What is Pitch Time, Pitch Diagram and how to make a Pitch Diagram?

Pitch time: In industrial Engineering, Pitch time is a ratio of total SAM of garment and number of operations to be set for the style. Or

Pitch Time = Garment SAM/No. of operations.

Pitch time is used for line setting and calculating production target for the line.

Pitch diagram:

A graphical presentation of individual operation’s time (SAM) and pitch time on a same chart is called pitch diagram. For example see the following chart (Fig.1). At this chart on X-axis operations name and on Y-axis time value is depicted. The blue line is showing individual operation SAM and red line is showing pitch time.

Fig.1: Pitch Diagram (SAM Vs Pitch Time)

Usage of Pitch Diagram:

Pitch time is to calculating machine requirement in each operation.

Pitch diagram is used for line balancing in an assembly line. Pitch diagram is made on operator’s production capacity per hour and target quantity per hour in pieces for easy understanding.

How to make a Pitch Diagram

To make a pitch diagram on operator’s capacity Vs line target collect information as following. First conduct a capacity study for all operators and find out how many pieces operators are making at each operation. Where more than one operator is doing same operation, sum up their capacity for that particular operation. With the capacity study data make one table on spreadsheet as following table-1. 

For example, the line is making ladies blouse. Operations are listed in column B as per operation sequence (all operations are not taken). In column C number of pieces is listed according to the operations that can be produced by the operators. Add one more column ‘D’ and write target quantity (in the example -27) against each operation.

Suppose that hourly production target is 27 pieces for the line. So to meet the target at the end of the line you should get minimum 27 pieces per hour from each operation and for the preparatory operations capacity should be more than 27 pieces. Now draw a line chart with capacity and line target (Fig. 2). This chart is also called as “Pitch Diagram”. The blue line is showing actual capacity at each operation and Red line is presenting the target quantity.

In the chart, the blue line moves up and down. Where blue line is below the target line, you will get pieces which are less than target quantity. These operations are the potential bottleneck for the line. On the other way, where blue is top of the target line, it means operators have potential to produce more pieces on those operations if they are provided work. From the Pitch diagram, it is easy to understand which operations are bottleneck and where operator’s full capacity is not being utilized.

Table-1: Data shown in the following table and chart are assumed only for example. Follow above steps and make your own “Pitch diagram” with real data of a line. 

A	B	C	D
Sl. No.	Operations	Capacity/Hour (Pieces)	Target/hr (Pieces)
1	Collar run stitch	35	27
2	Back dart making	27	27
3	Sleeve slit binder	29	27
4	Front placket attach	21	27
5	Front placket finish	20	27
6	Front dart making	33	27
7	Shoulder Join O/L	30	27
8	Shoulder edge stitch	40	27
9	Sleeve attach O/L	50	27
10	Side attach	20	27
11	Cuff attach	17	27
12	Cuff  finish & Tacking	16	27
13	Collar  attach	24	27
14	Collar finish	24	27
15	Bottom Hem	27	27

     
Fig. 2: Pitch Diagram (Actual capacity Vs Target quantity)