Many technologies have been developed and showcased worldwide focussing on productivity and efficiency improvement, one such innovation has been developed by Computer Generated Solutions (CGS), a US based company. The Shop Floor Control System based on RFID technology doesn’t leave any aspect of a shop floor untouched, be it production tracking, wage calculation or managing operator efficiencies, it is an all-in-one solution for an apparel manufacturer. James Hoerig, Vice President, Manufacturing Solutions – Leadtec Division, a garment industry expert with 37 years of experience, reviews the Shop Floor Control System Leadtec™ to increase efficiencies and bring down cost of production.
With the retailers and brands chasing low labour costs across the globe, it has become the ground for choosing an apparel manufacturing destination anywhere in the world. Hitherto, apparel manufacturing industry had witnessed a shift from the West to cheaper manufacturing destinations in Asian countries and has now started moving towards Africa. To contain the migration of work, efficiency and productivity needs to be improved. A comparison in the cost of manufacturing between the Latin American nations, which are producing on higher labour costs of $ 8.75 per hour, but with high efficiencies of 90%, with the Asian manufacturers, which although competitive with cheap labour of just $ 3.80 per hour, but working on marginal efficiencies of around 30%, shows that total production cost per hour in case of Latin America is lower at $ 9.72, while that in case of Asia is $ 12.67 per hour.
The importance of higher efficiencies is also highlighted in the case wherein 33 operators are needed for producing 550 garments at 46% efficiency, working on 40 workstations. However, if the efficiencies are increased not to 100%, but a rather achievable mark of 75%, only 24 operators are required, working on 27 machines and producing the same quantity of 550 garments. With a mere increase of 45% in an operator’s efficiency, the gains are tremendous. These results signify that by only hiring cheap labour, an apparel manufacturer cannot sustain at the global level. Therefore, modern apparel manufacturers should take steps towards eliminating the factors which contribute towards low sewing efficiencies like poor line balancing, poor operator utilization, lack of training, lack of work-aids, poor quality, high direct and indirect labour costs. The bottom line is line balancing and operator efficiencies are very critical in apparel manufacturing.
A real-time production system, in general, utilizes individual operator terminals to gather information on all production activities precisely as they occur. This information is presented to operators to empower and motivate them with feedback on their individual performance and help them achieve predetermined goals and increase their daily earnings. Managers become proactive rather than reactive and get a broader view of department or factory activity that they can use the information to establish realistic production goals and make faster and better informed production decisions throughout the shift. While, for the factory the information means controlling costs, maximizing profits, controlling quality and ensuring on-time delivery of precise order quantities day in and day out.
The Solution
There are many ways to measure data generated. In the Leadtec™ – Shop Floor Control Solution the root-level data is collected by the terminal attached to every sewing machine and as soon as the operator receives the bundle, he/she has to tap the RFID label attached to the bundle against the terminal. Moreover the terminal also notifies the operator if they are running low on the quantity or the time given, and if the target times overshoot, the manager/supervisor is notified and a message is displayed on the overhead message board visible to all. Also on display on the same board are the present overall efficiency, number of pieces produced, and number of operators absent, all for helping the supervisor in balancing the line.
Operator Benefits
The operators are the ones majorly benefited by the system as it generates real-time data related to higher current efficiency v/s the standard efficiency, number of pieces made v/s the pay rate and the target time, all this brings transparency in the system and in turn motivates the employees towards working at greater efficiencies as it also helps in calculating the group and individual incentive with the attendance. Operators are benefited by using the real-time terminals when entering a request for any sort of assistance which gets automatically routed to their supervisor or the person responsible for handling the request, to check on time loss due to work held up. Also every sewing operator gets sewing instruction on their terminal regarding the operation and the product given to them, thus reducing the supervisor’s time wasted in explaining to them and the number of errors which arise due to lack of understanding with the operator regarding the job.
Supervisor & Plant Management Benefits
It is necessary to first deskill the management and the supervisors before expecting the operator to perform at 100% efficiency levels that is where the system comes into play and equips the management with the right kind of information which helps them in not only line balancing but also operator and plant management. The system helps in effective operator management by maintaining a database of each operator’s skill inventory, i.e. a record regarding the types of operation done by each operator with the respective efficiencies and time taken for completion. This further simplifies the supervisor and management’s job. A further extension of this feature is the operator score kept by the system which is like an operator rating mechanism based on the criteria pre-defined by the management. The system also helps the organization in SQC (Statistical Quality Control), the AQL (Accepted Quality Level) followed by the organization is fed into the system and the inspector/checker has to just input the number and types of defects present in the garment and the system would inform whether to reject it or pass it.
The information generated by the system enables the management and supervisor to do line balancing in an effective manner in two ways – one by effective data collection and secondly by analysing the generated reports. A simple example for understanding the report-analysis done by the solution would be the case where in a sewing line one of the operations is being done in more than the expected quantity, i.e. over-production and another operation is under-produced due to low labour efficiency, the system would generate the standard hours that should be allotted to the operation running low and also calculates the hours that should be deduced from the ones with high productivity, while maintaining the minimum quantity to be produced.
Supervisors can also send messages to operators Real-Time terminals and/or to mobiles or email addresses of other plant personnel and all can be displayed at the overhead message board, if necessary.
Return-On-Investment
A 100% return-on-investment in 12 to 18 months is guaranteed through operator productivity improvements of up to 25%, labour cost reductions of up to 20%, and many other measurable cost savings. A manufacturing unit of 400 sewing operators, working at a labour productivity of 30%, 2352 hours per year and spends $ 3.18 per hour, but the hours actually utilized are only 706. After implementing Shop Floor Control System, the labour productivity increases by 70% and the actual hours utilized are increased to 1646 hours per year. Therefore the organization has an additional 940 standard hours per operator and when multiplied with the cost per hour of $ 3.18, the organization makes an additional $ 2,989.20 per operator, i.e. a total of $ 11,95,680 per year. Thus the improvements from the system alone pay for the investment made by the organization.
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