In a garment factory, on the shop floor, line supervisors get production target for the day. Production target means the number of garments needs to be produced by the end of the shift using given resources (man, machine and hours).
1. Hourly report for line output:
Only line output is captured and displayed. By making this hourly report, you can get production quantity. But it would not possible to know how much pieces are made by individual operators inside the line.
2. Hourly report for all operators working on a line:
This hourly report gives production data for all operations (operators). This one is an in-depth report for data analysis to see line balancing, finding low performers in the line. See image for this kind of report.
Factories normally work for 8 hours a day. For planning and estimating line capacity (production target), equal production is considered in every hour. Though you will get less output in morning hours compared to average hourly production.
Traditionally, line supervisors look at line output and but don't question much and hope that by evening they can meet target quantity. But it is found that at the end of shift they are not near to the target quantity. So to meet the daily target they plan for overtime working (OT).
The Way:
Circumstance may change in every minute. So your line output is. How you can control your production and achieve the target by end of the day. If you get hourly output from the line output and from critical operations (bottleneck operations), you can assess how much pieces can be made in eight hours. To speed up production you can plan for balance hours to meet the daily target.
In case you don't know how many pieces are made in first two hours or by half day, you couldn’t assess how many pieces can be made in 8 hours.
I would suggest you to capture hourly production report (for all operations or at least for critical operations in the line) and analyze the production report. By checking actual production every hour, you can estimate expected production in 8 hours. This report will help you to identify line WIP, and bottleneck operations. Even you can check line balancing in every hour.
The daily production target calculation part is easy but producing the target quantity from a line is not. So, you need an effective tool to control daily production at every hour. And the basic reporting tool used by garment factories is Hourly production report. Also called as Production by Hour Report.
In this post, I have explained two things
After the first hour, it shows production on that hour and cumulative production till the hour (production so far). The hourly report format also mentions daily production target, manpower, product SAM etc. The hourly target can be also mentioned on the whiteboard.
Hourly production report for more than one line on a floor can be shown in a single display board or individual hourly production report display can be made for all lines.
In this post, I have explained two things
- What is hourly production report and
- How to use hourly production report to control daily production
What is Hourly Production Report?
A report in which hourly production quantity of a line (line output) or/and hourly production of all operations and operators are captured is known as an hourly production report. For the current day, hourly production is displayed on a whiteboard. You can see the following image. |
| Hourly production report for single line |
Hourly production report for more than one line on a floor can be shown in a single display board or individual hourly production report display can be made for all lines.
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| Hourly production report format |
Traditionally one helper (or work study guy), go to the end-of-line checker or output operator in each line and ask for the quantity they made on that hour. In some factories, operators used to write down produced pieces (bundle quantity) on a piece of paper that is stick to the machine table. Data operator guy collects production data from that piece of paper and writes the quantity in a production board. In case operators don’t write production on a paper, data operator manually counts stitched pieces.
Depending on data requirement, you can make hourly reports one of the following ways.Data collection
1. Hourly report for line output:
Only line output is captured and displayed. By making this hourly report, you can get production quantity. But it would not possible to know how much pieces are made by individual operators inside the line.
2. Hourly report for all operators working on a line:
This hourly report gives production data for all operations (operators). This one is an in-depth report for data analysis to see line balancing, finding low performers in the line. See image for this kind of report.
 |
| Production by hour report (For all operations) |
How to control daily production implementing Hourly Production Report?
The fact:Factories normally work for 8 hours a day. For planning and estimating line capacity (production target), equal production is considered in every hour. Though you will get less output in morning hours compared to average hourly production.
Traditionally, line supervisors look at line output and but don't question much and hope that by evening they can meet target quantity. But it is found that at the end of shift they are not near to the target quantity. So to meet the daily target they plan for overtime working (OT).
The Way:
Circumstance may change in every minute. So your line output is. How you can control your production and achieve the target by end of the day. If you get hourly output from the line output and from critical operations (bottleneck operations), you can assess how much pieces can be made in eight hours. To speed up production you can plan for balance hours to meet the daily target.
In case you don't know how many pieces are made in first two hours or by half day, you couldn’t assess how many pieces can be made in 8 hours.
I would suggest you to capture hourly production report (for all operations or at least for critical operations in the line) and analyze the production report. By checking actual production every hour, you can estimate expected production in 8 hours. This report will help you to identify line WIP, and bottleneck operations. Even you can check line balancing in every hour.