In the previous post, I have explained what the fabric grouping is, its importance and major parameters considered in fabric grouping process. In this post, I will share an idea of how garment factories can reduce fabric grouping time.
Segregation and grouping of fabric are a common practice in the garment factories. On receiving fabrics from mills, garment factories perform the following activities to ensure product quality and increasing fabric utilization.
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| Fabric store (image source:lordsindia.com) |
- Fabric shrinkage testing done of random fabric rolls
- Fabric width measurement
- Fabric weight checking (GSM) of different lots
- Shade band preparation
How to reduce time in fabric grouping process?
The original idea came from Ram Sareen of Tukatech. I listened to his speech in the Tantu Seminar where he shared the idea of how garment factories can reduce time in fabric segregation and grouping exercise in their factories. How factories can save money and reduce process lead time by following simple things? In this post, I am sharing his idea with you.
Normally, fabric mills need to cut big fabric rolls into small rolls for packaging, handling, transporting fabric rolls and maybe for other reasons. When mills make smaller fabric rolls and mark the rolls by rolls number and batch number (processing lot number), they know exactly which rolls are part of the same batch and which rolls possibly have shade variation and which rolls may have variable shrinkages. Mills prepare fabric quality report as well. If all your fabric suppliers (when you are sourcing fabric from mills) provide you fabric grouping details covering all parameters that a garment factory does, you can follow that report for your fabric grouping.
Like fabric mills prepare a summary report of fabric rolls mentioning how many fabrics lots are there, number of shades and number of fabric shrinkage ranges for different fabric lots. Garment factory can follow the same grouping without going through a destructive fabric testing process. Factory can avoid wasting fabrics that are required for in-house tests. No need for segregation. They just need to find the fabric roll number and make groups. This would not take much time for planning, decision making for grouping and executing the task.
It seems a difficult goal, but this can be achieved.
To achieve this garment factories and fabric suppliers need to work together. There must be a trust factor and transparency. Report prepared by mills needs to be shared with factories in with the order. Even fabric data can be integrated between mills and garment factory if they use some kind of ERP software. Before applying this idea, factories need to build trust in the mills’ report.
What do you think? Share your thought.
Normally, fabric mills need to cut big fabric rolls into small rolls for packaging, handling, transporting fabric rolls and maybe for other reasons. When mills make smaller fabric rolls and mark the rolls by rolls number and batch number (processing lot number), they know exactly which rolls are part of the same batch and which rolls possibly have shade variation and which rolls may have variable shrinkages. Mills prepare fabric quality report as well. If all your fabric suppliers (when you are sourcing fabric from mills) provide you fabric grouping details covering all parameters that a garment factory does, you can follow that report for your fabric grouping.
Like fabric mills prepare a summary report of fabric rolls mentioning how many fabrics lots are there, number of shades and number of fabric shrinkage ranges for different fabric lots. Garment factory can follow the same grouping without going through a destructive fabric testing process. Factory can avoid wasting fabrics that are required for in-house tests. No need for segregation. They just need to find the fabric roll number and make groups. This would not take much time for planning, decision making for grouping and executing the task.
It seems a difficult goal, but this can be achieved.
To achieve this garment factories and fabric suppliers need to work together. There must be a trust factor and transparency. Report prepared by mills needs to be shared with factories in with the order. Even fabric data can be integrated between mills and garment factory if they use some kind of ERP software. Before applying this idea, factories need to build trust in the mills’ report.
What do you think? Share your thought.
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Fabric