One among the very few women’s wear manufacturers who deal in quantities as low as 500 pieces per style, Crystal Martin came into existence when Hong Kong-based Crystal Group acquired UK-based Martin Impex in 2004. Currently, the company runs factories in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Vietnam and Bangladesh.
Lean is the next step for growing organically in the mature manufacturing markets! Spearheaded by General Manager – Operations, Vimarsha Peiris – Crystal Martin’s Bangladesh arm, is now in the pursuit of implementing lean in the right earnest while also trying to double its capacity in the near future. “Streamlining operations and implementing lean manufacturing is our top priority,” maintains Crystal Martin’s Sri Lankan General Manager, who has already set the ball rolling as far as lean is concerned. To start with, the company has designed the layout of the factory in such a manner to ensure that the fabric store, cutting department, sewing department, with on-line finishing, all follow a linear flow of material.
“For lean, ideally the cutting should be in front of the block to ensure that it is in line with the production,” underlines Vimarsha, who is now planning to bring the WIP further down from the present 2 to 2½ days between cutting and sewing. However, a typical problem that all enterprises face while implementing lean manufacturing is the resistance to the change, which is rather smartly being dealt with by Vimarsha. Giving a miss to the use of heavy jargons like, Kanban, Kaizen and the likes Crystal Martin went about the business by imparting the fundamentals of the lean concepts to the workforce without naming those, which is yielding positive results for it already.
“If the IE makes an estimate of 500 pieces’ output, then 500 pieces are introduced in the line in two to three intervals, in a trolley. This not only makes material management easier, but also saves the extra process of numbering. The process of bundling has been eliminated as the pieces travel in small buckets, in the line, from which the operator picks up the piece, carries out his/her operation, puts it back, and passes it ahead,” states the Vimarsha, who goes on to add that the rework is done in the line itself, and the garment is majorly checked before it goes for end-line checking. In order to maintain quality, the company has further dedicated separate blocks and trained operators making use of a maximum of 36 machines in each line.
To maintain the quality of output, Crystal Martin also practices traffic light system and affirmatively ensures that the operators check the quality of pieces done by them, to eliminate the need of in-line checkers. “To propagate this concept of making quality products, among the workers, we incentivize the operator not only for the total output but also for good quality products, which has brought down the rejection rate to less than one per cent,” explains Vimarsha, who has now set his eyes on doubling the production capacity. The US $ 1.8 billion Crystal Group, to expand its capacities, is all set to come up with a new manufacturing unit in Valuka, to cater to its existing client M&S as well as to fulfil the requirements of its new buyer NEXT.
Having created its niche by manufacturing activewear, sportswear, winterwear (fleece), and nightwear (georgette, chiffon) with value-additions like computerized embroidery and heat transfer printing, Crystal Martin has employed seasoned expatriates to tide over the issue of weak middle-management that Bangladesh is somewhat infamous for. “We have hired near about 25 people from Sri Lanka and Philippines for mid-level and top-level management profiles,” adds Vimarsha underlining that the expats have been working on training the middle management people at the factory, which has helped the company to fill in the gaps by positioning trained people on posts like Factory Manager and Production Manager. Like in the merchandising department, Head of Merchandising is from UK, with two Sri Lankans supporting him, and under them are all the senior merchandisers who are locals.
Besides, the foreign experts have also helped the company tide over the issue of managing multiple styles in manufacturing that it is renowned for. “Managing 100 styles per month which surmounts to numerous style changeovers requiring variety of fabrics, we are able to counter this challenge to a great extent through the expertise of the foreign professionals, who carry with them years of experience handling such complicated operations with great élan,” informs Vimarsha, whose next set of challenge is to deal with timelines, deliveries, pricing and costing which has been necessitated due to shifting of marketing operations from Crystal Martin’s UK-based office to the regional office in Bangladesh that would require Vimarsha to ship his products directly to the buyers which was earlier been taken care of by the warehouse in UK.
Post a Comment