These 4 Activities You Can Do While Working from Home

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You may be knowing that the OCS blog is a knowledge platform for the apparel industry professionals and newcomers. In the current situation (all factories are closed due to locked down), to keep yourself busy, you can work from home and do the following activities.

You can do some value-added and productive tasks for the company. These may include developing factory KPI, developing factory SOPs, KRAs for various departments, Sewing operator training module, etc.

You will get all the guidelines and help with OCS blogs.

1. Develop KPI reports/data analysis for the factory:

To enhance your knowledge of these topics.  

1. Read this article and this article for a guide on preparing the top 5 KPIs.
2. If you are not yet measuring KPIs. Learn it and start measuring it. KPIs are an essential tool of knowing a factory's performance on various key parameters.
3. You can read my book on KPI subject. Garment Maker’s KPI – Why Measure and How to Measures. (Buy this eBook at a 50% discounted price in April 2020. Discount Code: LD200)

2. Develop Standard operating procedures (SOP) for the factory –

You work developing standard working procedures of your department and other production department and SOP for various activities. Read this example of developing SOPs and follow it as guidelines for developing SOP for other activities.

3. Develop key responsibility areas (KRAs) for HODs.

If you already have KRAs for all departments, you can improve it by reading other factory’s KRAs. Read related posts -

1. Job responsibilities of IE for various positions
2. KRA for line supervisors

4. Develop Manuals for Sewing operator training:

After the lockdown, you may face challenges in getting enough workers for the shop floor. You may need to hire fresh workers and train them to fill the production line. Here are some training manuals, articles, reports, and guides on operator training.

1. Systematic Training of Sewing Industry Operators – An Introduction (Paul Collyer)
2. Operator Training and Deployment in Apparel Industry - A Systemic View (Paul Collyer)
3. Sewing Operator Training Manual (Developed by Sushant Kumar /SlideShare )
4. Facilitator Guide: sewing machine operator (National Skill Development Corporation)
5. Preparing Training Manual for Sewing Operators (NIFT Student’s Project Report by Akanksha Kumar and Arpit Anand)

If you are a beginner, read How-to guides for industrial engineering. This is a good time to learn other subject areas as well (other than your job profile), like production planning, merchandising and quality management in a garment factory.

Finally, prepare a plan, how do the factory can resume the work after the lockdown. In production planning and production schedule areas. Work together and find a kind of precaution that must be taken to maintain social distancing in the factory (if needed). You can ask the factory owner to start contact-less attendance for all employees. 

Talk to your colleagues and team members about what can be done while you are not going to the factory. For brainstorming and discussion with your team, you can do a conference call.