It's well known that many garment manufacturing companies already have industrial engineering (IE) departments and employ engineers to optimize productivity on the production floor.
In this post, I’ll explore how Industrial Engineering concepts are applied within the garment industry. Understanding these concepts is crucial for those considering whether to establish an IE department in a garment factory. To clarify this, I’ll address two key questions, providing a detailed explanation and concluding with a recommended book for further reading on the subject.
The two main questions are:
- What is the application of Industrial Engineering in the apparel industry?
- How Industrial Engineering concepts are used by apparel manufacturers?
1. Application of Industrial Engineering
Industrial engineering concepts are used in garment manufacturing to fulfill the following purposes.
- to monitor the production floor and have better control over the production floor
- to improve processes and working methods of working to increase the factory's overall performance and standardize garment manufacturing processes
The overall application of industrial engineering can be explained better by describing the common tasks of the IE department. Common tasks of an IE department are as follows but not limited to these.
Work measurement:
Work measurement of sewing operations, cutting room jobs, and finishing jobs is the top priority under industrial engineer application in garment production. IE conducts time and motion study and then establish standard time of sewing operations and other tasks. Without work measurement, we can not set standards of the processes and operations.
Standard time (SMV) calculation:
As you understand SMV is the key for many things in garment production, SMV for each operations must be calculated accurately considering various aspects of manufacturing process and product. As an industrial engineering application SMV calculation should counted as one of the top applications.
Product Analysis:
Style analysis and conducting research and development (R&D) of the styles. When IE team involved in production analysis they can prepare the style sheet with more details with machinery requirement and work aids requirement.
Method improvement:
IE team works on improving method of work and workstation desgning.
Work aids development:
Industrial Engineers work on required workaid for the operations to ease the material handing and reduce opertors' effort in sewing.
Wrokstation Design:
Workstation designing and machine layout planning
Labor cost estimation:
In a garment factory, IE assist merchandisers in calculating cost of garment manufacturing and labor cost per style. They calculate labor cost based on the standard time of the garment, standard allowances and minimum labour wages. Based on the estimated labor cost, the company calculate product cost and FOB rate.
In a garment factory, IE assist merchandisers in calculating cost of garment manufacturing and labor cost per style. They calculate labor cost based on the standard time of the garment, standard allowances and minimum labour wages. Based on the estimated labor cost, the company calculate product cost and FOB rate.
Calculating Employee Performance (Efficiency%):
Daily employees' performance measurement on the work is an essential task which is done by IE department.
Training of workers (sewing operators):
Training and retraining to operators and other workers is essetional to build skilled labor force. Training and workshops improve learning and awareness among the workers on the floor. Regular training are conducted by IE.
Incentive scheme design and earning data validation:
To motivate workers incentive scheme work very well if the scheme designed correctly. In a garment factory IE team design the performance based incentive scheme. Thye take care of calculating incentives for sewing operators based on the incentive plan. Validation of performance and weekly bonus amount distribution are done by IE team only. IE team also need to check the benefit of the company after paying incentive to the operators.
Production target setting:
IE set up daily production targets for the sewing lines. They further follow up actual daily production from line supervisors and operators.
Application of lean tools:
Lean concept and lean tools are accepted worldwide for improving the production floor performance and improving product quality with optimized cost. Basic lean tools like 5S, Kanban, Visual display, Kaizen project can be easily implemented in the garment manufacturing factories. In the factory level, normally IEs take leads to implement the lean tool and they work as trainer and instructor for training of Lean training.
2. Use of Industrial Engineering Concepts
Factories that are using IE techniques mostly have a complete IE setup (department). An IE department consists of IE managers (in charge), Industrial Engineers, and junior engineers. The strength of the IE team widely varies based on the maturity level of the department and on the focus on the application of Industrial Engineering. Without having enough team members, an IE department cannot work effectively.
Industrial Engineers are utilized in the following ways but not limited to those -
Factories apply all or a few of the above-listed functions to
- assist line supervisors by preparing resource requirement plans (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, the 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 a management team. Engineers are involved in performance improvement tasks of the cutting department and finishing department.
Companies that have limited manpower in the IE teams only involve engineers for routine jobs like making operation bulletins, thread consumption, preparing daily production reports, etc.
Conclusion:
No doubt, the Industrial engineering department is adding a lot of value to the company. Without having the Industrial Engineering team one would not know how things are going on the shop floor, what corrective measures need to be taken on time, and effective utilization of manpower and machines.
Industrial engineering concept needs to be incorporated at the time of plant set up instead of changing and modifying things later after the factory starts making garments.
Applications of IE tools are also explained in other articles. Check our archive page of industrial engineering articles.
I have written and published a book 'Industrial Engineer' Digest' . You can refer to this book to learn about industrial engineering application in the apparel industry..