APPAREL MANUFACTURING PROCESS

Assignment -2

Submitted by:
Arushi Panwar (MFT/19/107)
Shilpa V Nair (MFT/19/58)
Kotha lavanya (MFT/19/54)
LEAN MANUFACTURING
Lean production is an approach to management that focuses on cutting out waste,
whilst ensuring quality .this approach can be applied to all aspects of a business from design,
through production to distribution. Lean production aims to cut costs by making the business
more efficient and responsive to market needs.

Lean manufacturing, or lean production, is a production method derived from Toyota's

1930 operating model "The Toyota Way" (Toyota Production System, TPS). The term "Lean"
was coined in 1988 by John Krafcik, and defined in 1996 by James Womack and Daniel Jones to
consist of five key principles; 'Precisely specify value by specific product, identify the value
stream for each product, make value flow without interruptions, let customer pull value from
the producer, and pursue perfection.

Lean focuses on analyzing work flow to reduce cycle time and eliminate waste. Lean
strives to maximize value to the customers while using a few resources as possible. Six sigma
strives for near perfect results that will reduce costs and achieve higher levels of customer
satisfaction.

Kaizen, 5S, Kanban, value stream mapping, and focus PDCA are among the most useful
lean tools. Each of the 5 principles of lean thinking build on each other and then again to create
a continuous cycle of improvement. Those 5 key lean principles are value, value stream, flow,
pull and perfection.

KEY PRINCIPLES

Womack and Jones define Lean as a way to do more and more with less and less - less human
effort, less equipment, less time, and less space - while coming closer and closer to providing
customers exactly what they want" and then translate this into five key principles:

1. Value - Specify the value desired by the customer. "Form a team for each product to
stick with that product during its entire production cycle", "Enter into a dialogue with
the customer" (e.g. Voice of the customer)
 2. The Value Stream - Identify the value stream for each product providing that value and
challenge all of the wasted steps (generally nine out of ten) currently necessary to
provide it
3. Flow - Make the product flow continuously through the remaining value-added steps
4. Pull - Introduce pull between all steps where continuous flow is possible
5. Perfection - Manage toward perfection so that the number of steps and the amount of
time and information needed to serve the customer continually falls.

KANBAN:

Kanban is a visual method for controlling production as a part of Just in Time (JIT) and
lean manufacturing. As a part of a pull system it controls what is produced, in what quantity,
and when. Its purpose is to ensure that you only produce what the customer is asking for and
nothing more.

An industrial engineer at Toyota, developed kanban to improve manufacturing

efficiency. Kanban is one method to achieve JIT. The system takes its name from the cards that
track production within a factory. For many in the automotive sector, kanban is known as the
"Toyota nameplate system".

Kanban became an effective tool to support running a production system as a whole,

and an excellent way to promote improvement. Problem areas are highlighted by measuring
lead time and cycle time of the full process and process steps. One of the main benefits of
kanban is to establish an upper limit to work in process inventory to avoid overcapacity. Other
systems with similar effect exist.

A goal of the kanban system is to limit the buildup of excess inventory at any point in
production. Limits on the number of items waiting at supply points are established and then
reduced as inefficiencies are identified and removed. Whenever a limit is exceeded, this points
to an inefficiency that should be addressed.
Case study:

1. APPLICATION OF KANBAN SYSTEM FOR IMPLEMENTING LEAN MANUFACTURING

This paper deals with implementation of lean manufacturing in Engine valve machining
cell in a leading auto components manufacturing industry in the South India. The main
objective of this paper is to provide a background on lean manufacturing, present an
overview of manufacturing wastes and introduce the tools and techniques that are
used to transform a company into a high performing lean enterprise. Value stream
mapping is a main tool used to identify the opportunities for various lean techniques.
The focus of the lean manufacturing approach is on cost reduction by eliminating Non-
Value added activities. Applications have spanned many sectors including automotive,
electronics and consumer products manufacturing. In this paper, Value Stream
 Mapping (VSM) is used to map the current operating state for production line. This
map is used to identify sources of waste and to identify lean tools for reducing the
waste. To eliminate the wastes found from the current state map Kanban system is
suggested for pre machining section and single piece flow concept is suggested for
machining section. Then a future state map has been developed for the system with
lean tools applied to it.

2. Lean Manufacturing Case Study with Kanban System Implementation

Lean manufacturing has been the buzzword in the area of manufacturing for past
few years especially in Japan. The Kanban system is one of the manufacturing strategies
for lean production with minimal inventory and reduced costs. However, the Kanban
system is not being implemented widely by manufacturing companies in Malaysia. Thus,
the objectives of this case study are 1) to determine how does the Kanban system works
effectively in multinational organization; and 2) to identify factors hindering Malaysian
small and medium enterprises (SME) from implementing Kanban. Findings of the study
suggest that top management commitment, vendor participation, inventory management
and quality improvement are important for Kanban deployment and towards lean
manufacturing.
In order to ensure the implementation of Kanban system a success, certain factors
should be considered such as inventory management, vendor and supplier participation,
quality improvements and quality control and employee and top management
commitment (Kumar, 2010).
Inventory: According to Heizer and Render, 2005, the company never achieves a low-
cost strategy without good inventory management. These authors quoted inventory are
classified into four categories. They are raw material inventory, work in progress
inventory, finished goods and maintenance, repair, operating inventory. Since inventories
are important in organization, managing these inventories becomes complicated since it
involved storage and holding costs and space in manufacturing plant. Inventory
management is a complex problem area owing to diversify of real life situations
(Kobbacy and Liang, 1999).
Supplier Participation: Kanban system requires supplier commitment in providing fast
services to provide effective supply of raw materials. Basically Kanban system only
requires minimum level of inventories in the production line where the inventories
number should be equal with the production numbers. Therefore supplier commitment
play an important role in order to ensure production lines operates smoothly and
efficiently. There are five important criteria when choosing suppliers includes quality,
willingness to work together, technical competence, geography, and price. The aim of
just in time (hereafter termed as JIT) is to eliminate stocks rather than move them to
another point in the supply chain. And, again, the way to achieve this is through the co-
operation (Donald, 2003). The Japanese Kanban process of production is sometimes
incorrectly described as a simple just-in-time management technique, a concept which
attempts to maintain minimum inventory. The Japanese Kanban process involves more
than fine tuning production and supplier scheduling systems, where inventories are
minimized by supplying these when needed in production and work in progress in
closely monitored (Donald, 2003).

Quality Improvement and Quality Control: Kanban system not only assists company in
saving their cost by having fewer inventories but it also controls and maintains quality
improvements of the output. Just in Time (JIT) is one of the elements constituted in total
quality management (hereafter termed as TQM) system (Flynn et al., 1995). For an
effective JIT, all delivered parts and products must achieved certain level of quality
standards before those parts and products are accepted for the next operations or reaching
the customer incoming end. This is due to the four main reasons includes improved
processes can make products with guaranteed high quality, high quality gives producers a
competitive advantage, consumers have become used to high quality products, and will
not accept anything less and high quality reduces costs such as prevention, appraisal,
internal failure and external failure costs (Bernstein, 1984). Traditional companies believe
quality is costly, defects are caused by workers and the minimum level of quality that can
satisfy the customer is enough. Organizations practicing the Kanban system believe that
quality leads to lower costs, that systems caused most defects, and that quality can be
improved within the kaizen framework (Balram, 2003).
Employee Participation and Top Management Commitment: Nowadays, commitment and
good rapport between employees and management become as culture in organization to
ensure their people in organization able to corporate with each other to achieve their
objectives. The researcher has classified Japanese culture issue into two broad categories
worker related and management related. This distinction between workers and managers
has helped Japanese management implement JIT successfully (Narender et al., 1995). All
employees should be concerned and fully participative with the success of the new system
and the success of the organization for the future; thus they should be treated equally and
fairly. For the Japanese workers, they are totally committed to their work and the
company. They are loyal, co-operative, flexible and willing to work long hours when
needed (Altman, 2000).
Analysis found that all three managers reiterated the same factors supporting the
needs for Kanban system and with good production practices. The study suggested that
inventory management, vendor and supplier participation, quality improvement and
quality control, employee and top management commitment were the factors that lead to
successful implementation of the Kanban system in this organization. As a result , based
on the interview, it can be concluded that the factors that hinder SME companies from
implementing the Kanban system were identified as ineffective inventory management,
lack of supplier participation, lack of quality improvements and quality control and lack
of employee participation and lack of top management commitment toward the
implementation of Kanban system in the production.
In conclusion, the Kanban system implemented in this manufacturing company was
found to be adequate due to the many benefits such as the operational costs, wastes,
scraps and losses were minimized, over production stocks were controlled with flexible
work stations. The factors that hinder SME companies from implementing the Kanban
system are identified as ineffective inventory management, lack of supplier participation,
lack of quality improvements and quality control and lack of employee participation and
top management commitment. Implication of this study suggest that further research
needs to be done on more SMEs so as to have more conclusive findings on Kanban
implementation and barriers faced by the SME entrepreneurs. Other than that, the
company must develop standard operating procedures for all processes involved in
production line by improving the existing policy in order to make production process
more efficient in future and it can be implemented by other manufacturing companies.
3.TOYATA PRODUCTION SYSTEM

Toyota Production System is one of the items in which Toyota Motor Co. instructs the suppliers.
This system is also called the Kanban system and has become well-known internationally for its
small quantity of stocks and thorough rationalization. Toyota Production System has two major
features, “Just-in-Time Production” and “Jidoka (Automatic line stopping when something goes
wrong)”. The ideal state for producing goods is the one where machines, equipment and men
perform waste less operations which serve nothing but to increase added value. “Just-in time
production” was thought out to convert this ideal state into practical one everywhere, between
each operation, each process, each line and each shop. In other words, by “Just-in-time
production” each process can supply necessary parts in necessary volume at necessary time. On
the other hand “Jidoka” means that whenever an abnormal or defective condition arises,
machines, equipment or general conveyor lines can be supported by the judgment of these
machines, equipment and line workers themselves. In short “Jidoka” lies emphasis not on
operating machines to full extent but on making them stop by themselves as soon as machining
defects happen in order to take necessary actions.

1) Hourly production at every process is leveled with respect to volumes and specifications of
products.

2) Attention is paid to prevent over production

3) Occurrence of abnormality can be easily identified by some means of indication (buzzer or

lamp) Toyota Production System employ “Kanban” or a form of order card as working device.
This is the reason why the production system is called “Kanban System” This system connects a
supplier as a production process with each of Toyota’s plans and realizes to minimize the work
in process inventories, which every process in a shop used to keep in considerable volume
formally

Production order is given by “Kanban” or order cards which a subsequent process bring to the
preceding process. The preceding process produces what the subsequent process demands for.
For instance, as one can see in the third frame of Fig., the washing process brings a order cards to
the preceding machining process when washed products stock reaches below the prescribed level
by the demand from the subsequent assembling process. The machining process starts processing
as soon as it receives the order card. “Kanban” or order cards are circulated not only in a
company but also between different companies. Dispatch of carburetors of the company A is
begun by the order card from the engine assembly division of Toyota Motor Co. Then an order is
given to the assembly process for the types of carburetors that were removed from stock shelf
and dispatched. In this way orders are given to the preceding processes like chain reaction.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
Toyota has promoted mutual prosperity with 200 component suppliers under the basic principle
of long term and stable transaction. And Toyota continues to maintain and improve the
relationship with the component suppliers following this basic spirit. For this reason, Toyota will
go with assisting the component suppliers in management as well as quality control. And
TOYOTA expects the suppliers to strengthen the management system of their own and to supply
the products of excellent technology and quality without presuming upon or being too much
dependent on the principle of long term and stable transaction. And Toyota would like to carry
on business with overseas suppliers with processes of excellent technology and management
foundation.

HYPOTHETICAL FACTORY

LAS GARMENTS

The problem faced by the industry was:

 Higher operational cost (Cost per SAM) at USD 0.12/ETB 3.36, where as per the author’s
computation, it should not be more than USD 0.047/ETB 1.37 to be profitable while working for
buyers like H&M etc.
 Line Efficiency as low as 17 % whereas the global average is 62%
 Time taken to cut an order quantity is 15.4% of the time taken to sew, whereas the optimum
average should not be more than 7%
 Time taken to pack an order quantity is 117.2% of the time taken to sew, whereas the optimum
average should not be more than 29%
 IMPLIMENTATION OF KANBAN
KANBAN refers to the visual signals that authorize the production or movement of items and
sometimes referred to as the nervous system of a Lean Production System. ‘Supermarket’ is a
tool of Kanban which manages the “Work in process” on the manufacturing floor (Cutting
section) and it will have accountability as well as responsibility of the process.
a. A card is displayed on the Kanban dashboard which means availability of bits in the
supermarket.
b. The batch/line signals to the dashboard which indicates requirement of bits in cutting table
c. The bits are moved from supermarket to cutting table along with the blue Kanban card.
d. The cutting of bits takes place according to micro-cut plan and white Kanban card is then
displayed on the Kanban post of cutting table, to await to load back to the production line
e. When the white Kanban card returns to the Kanban post at the end of the production line
that has been set up to provide a visual signal for operation of the line.
f. The Kanban card is displayed till the finishing of the garment along with the packing of
garments in the cartons.
g. The sticker attached to Kanban card is stick to Kanban input book after accepting that
cartons in packing area.
h. Kanban loading and Input Book is an assistant tool for Kanban card which keeps the record
of loading Kanban to the batch and completion of that Kanban.
i. The feeding helper maintains the record of those two books, and it is the responsibility of
her/her to watch daily loading and completion of Kanban.
j. By observing the two books anyone can find the loaded quantity, WIP of the line, which
Kanban is taking much time to operate.

Cutting Department

1. Manual marker making by the pattern master without calculating the marker efficiency or fabric
utilization. This could be solved by developing automated software for marker planning which could
calculate the fabric utilization.
2. Manual bundle ticket preparation which alone resulted in a projected annual loss of ETB 3, 08,752
against a planned cutting capacity of 30,000 pieces per month. This could be solved by the development
of software which could create ready to print bundle tickets.

3. No system of bundle tracking and end bit storage which resulted in difficulty, time loss and errors in
searching for the fabric for panel replacement. This could be solved by allotting space for end-bit storage
and proper training to the cutting staffs on how to record and its retrieval.

Sewing Department

1) High WIP in lines, 400-425% of the daily output, which could easily be reduced by 70% by change of
production system to single piece flow and use of Kanban system.

2) Line working at an extremely low efficiency of 17% due to no strict follow up of targets by
management. The reason was they were often not aware of the day-to-day development in the absence
of an ERP system. They did not invest in an ERP system as it was thought as not important and
expensive. This could be solved by development of an inexpensive MS-Excel based MIS & ERP system for
entry and analysis of production, quality, costing issues & daily reporting to top management.

3) Low motivated and stressed operators due to no incentive scheme and ergonomically uncomfortable
workplace which could be solved by:

a) Proper division of work to eligible workers

b) Job rotation

c) Monitoring of worker performance

d) Continuous training of hard, soft skills and world class principles to the operators as well as the
middle managerial staff

e) Development of incentive system,

f) Development of ergonomically-proper work aids

4) High throughput time of more than 5 days for an order of 1500 pieces which could be reduced by 80-
85% by:

a) Change of production system into one-piece flow.

b) Implementation of SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die) for quick change over time.

c) No properly designated work responsibility and evaluation mechanism for the middle to the upper
level managerial staff. This could be solved by:

i) Development of an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for the factory

ii) Development of an HR manual for the factory with job-description and evaluation criteria.

Finishing and Packing Department

1. Only 35% of the Finishing and Packing Capacity was utilized. This was due to delay in packing of
cartons due to unavailability of right sizes. This could be solved by the implementation of Kanban
system.

Development of Automated Marker Planning Tool

A unique and one of its kind indigenous Marker planning cum Kanban ticket generation application tool
was created for automated generation of the best possible size ratio and the fabric utilization percent.
The algorithm was developed using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), Macros and Solver® Add-in of
MS-Excel. The software works on linear programming model using the Simplex method to produce an
optimal solution to satisfy the given constraints and produce a maximum zeta value against introduced
slack variables

Minimum of 3 Kanban is kept ready in cutting for ready to load and cutting section should display WIP
Kanban on the cutting table. Moreover, every Kanban needs to be completed as per loading quantity
and offered for quality specifications and carton audit. In Single-Piece flow system, bundles are replaced
by single pieces. This reduces the WIP and throughput time. Single Piece Flow was introduced in the
Assembly section of the pilot shirt line. A feeder was trained to clip the individual components i.e.
sleeve, cuff, front, back, collar and cuff etc. and make it ready to feed into the assembly section as per
the Kanban. The line output was again bundled as per the Kanban and issued into the Finishing Section.
SMED is the abbreviation of Single Minute Exchange of Die which helps in reducing the line set.
Maintenance personnel were trained in the procedure of SMED. So, whenever a style change occurred,
they parallelly made the machined ready for operation along with their attachments

Comparison of Throughput time

Comparison is made between the throughput time achieved pre and post implementation of Kanban &
single piece flow. The result shows that throughput time was 45.6 hrs. before single piece
implementation. It drastically reduced by 43% (7.4 hrs.) after implementation.

Comparison of Daily Production

The average daily production was 310 in case of traditional batch system whereas after Kanban & single
piece flow implementation it increased by 31% due to less throughput time and reached to 450.

Comparison of Line Efficiency

A focused research is done on analyzing line efficiency. It was computed by dividing the total work
content in seconds by the number of operators multiplied by the SAM. Earlier efficiency was 17.4%
whereas after Kanban & single piece flow implementation it became 29.5%. Efficiency was increased
due to increment in daily output and on the other hand, number of operators was also reduced. The
efficiency (29.5%) was achieved with reduction in manpower from 62 to 53 operators.

Comparison of DHU

The improvement in terms of reduction in number of defects was considered in measuring the
effectiveness of Kanban implementation. DHU was 127, which was very high against international
standard of 10-20 at End line (Author’s observation) before Kanban & single piece flow implementation.

Comparison of WIP

Because of large bundle size, the WIP was 1248, which was very high. After implementation of Kanban &
single piece flow, WIP drastically reduced to 327 by 73%.

Comparison of Cost per SAM

Comparison is made between the Cost per SAM pre and post implementation of Kanban & single piece
flow. Earlier cost per SAM was ETB 3.36 whereas after this study it was reduced by 25% to ETB 2.52.
There are different reasons behind the Cost per SAM reduction such as improvement in line efficiency,
increment in daily production, reduction in DHU etc.

Benefits in Finishing and Packing Department

The time taken to finish and pack a shirt was 8 minutes during study. There with 12 manpower
employed, the installed capacity was 720 pieces per shift. But, the factory could only pack 200-250
pieces. After successful implementation of Kanban, the waiting time for correct pieces drastically
reduced. The time taken to pack a particular order reduced by 65 % which was really appreciated.

Overall Benefits of MIS and ERP Development Tool

The following results were achieved after MS excel based MIS and ERP tool which were highly
encouraging:

1. A skill matrix was prepared on the basis of performance of the individual operators.

2. Weak operators can easily be sorted out and sent to the training department for retraining.

3. The overall atmosphere of the production floor improved with motivated employees as they were
rewarded with both verbal appreciation and with monetary benefits.

4. Operator attrition rate was also reduced from the present 8% to 5% due to incentive.

5. The maintenance department could easily locate machines with the maximum breakdown rate and
taken necessary action.

6. Appropriate action could be taken to rectify the reasons behind the most frequent off standard time
activities.

7. Appropriate action could be taken to reduce top recurring defects.

Item no.
P.O no. line no.
Kanban

size ratio Quantity

loaded

Cutting manager :
Date:

Fig: kanban card

Supermarket incharge will inform to fabric warehouse of low WIP

Fabric warehouse will transfer fabric to fabric supermarket as per

challan

Supermarket incharge will receiver fabric and verify the quantity

Received fabric will store in specific racks

Fabric issued to the cutting table as per ANDON signal

After cutting the cut panel s has to be checked

Cut panels should be bundled as per kanban plan

Bundle send to cutting supermarket

Bundles are recorded in kanban register

Bundles are stored at specific racks

Feeding helper will come for the loading

Feeding helper will get loading as per requirement

Feeding helper will count the cut panels and load it.

Feeding helper will update the “cutting status board “

Fig: SOP of kanban flow

 Fabric warehouse

Fabric supermarket

Spreading, laying and cutting

Printing embroidery

Ticketing

Weighing bundle for supermarket

Cutting supermarket

Sewing floor

Fig: process flow of supermarket