Question: What would be the job responsibilities of a senior IE on the production floor when all operators are working in a piece-rate factory?
There are many garment factories in the global apparel industry that still pay to their employees in piece-rate bases. Though a factory works on piece rate - there are many things an IE can do in that factory.
No one stopping you in doing method improvement and process improvement. Improving reporting and MIS system.
Try to increase piece-rate operator earning.
Try to reduce the cost of manufacturing. I mean work on reducing the production cost per garment.
In a piece-rate factory, management must justify the piece-rate given to their operators for doing stitching operations. Who will do the study for understanding that operators are given the correct piece rate? This could be your main responsibility.
Try to reduce the piece-rate for the running styles (garment item) and for the same operation by improving the working method and reduce the garment SAM. Do method study and time study.
If the WIP is not managed well in the factory. Work on the line balancing. Do capacity study and capture hourly employee production data and balance the line.
You need to work on manpower requirements and machine requirements for the new style. You need to find useful attachments and guides for critical operations. Piece rate operators cannot do that job alone.
I visited one garment factory in Bulgaria that work on a piece-rate basis. They have an industrial engineer and they do time study for new operations for the new styles. They help line supervisors in setting-up the production line according to the operation sequence and preparing the operation bulletin.
In another factory, who pays to their sewing operators by piece-rate, they concentrate on capturing production data accurately and recording employees’ production correctly, so that factory pays each operator for the work they have done.
Check the detailed job responsibilities of industrial engineers and senior industrial Engineers in this article. You can follow all those listed job responsibilities. You just need to modify your list depending on the management’s focus and number of IEs in your team.
Develop and maintain MIS reports. You can prepare KPI reports and dashboards for the major production KPIs and discuss the progress of the company in various areas to the management.
You can take it another way, research how much piece-rate is given by the nearby garment factories, what is standard piece-rate for different sewing operations in your cluster. You can standardize piece-rate based on your study and attract skilled workers.
Related Question: Determining Garment Piece Rate Based on Standard Time - An Introduction
