In mass garment production, RMG factories employ workers and helpers other than machine operators (MO). Factories keep records of the indirect worker on daily basis. For example, thread rewinder, supervisor’s helpers, and bundle transporter‘s worked hours are considered as unmeasured man hours in a factory.
Unmeasured man hours are not included in line efficiency calculations.
In other words, it can be also defined as there will be some sewing and non-sewing operations, that might not be included in the style operation bulletin. But line supervisors need to assign workers or operators to those operations to make the style. Now when it comes to line efficiency calculation, if you only consider hours worked on an employee whose production is not counted in produced SAM (SAH), your efficiency will drop. That is the reason for keeping unmeasured man-hours in a separate head.
There are other examples of unmeasured man-hours
- Operators undergoing training. In this case, operators are present in the line full day in a factory but they may not work on making styles all day.
- Size trial production – In trial production, there will lot of idle time due to machine setting and operator’s work checking.
- Repair works from finishing or after washing. Sometimes supervisor may need to allocate machine operators for repair work.
Why measure unmeasured man hours?
Reporting unmeasured man-hours, helps industrial engineers in two ways to justify total manpower in a day and line efficiency.
#1. In some factories, the industrial engineer needs to declare existing unmeasured man hours when some lines or factory exceeds that man hours effect on their KPI. Factories keep a cap for unmeasured man-hours in comparison to measured man-hours.
#2. Report two efficiency data for line efficiency and factory efficiency.
- Calculating line efficiency and factory efficiency without adding unmeasured man-hours
- Calculating line efficiency and factory efficiency by adding unmeasured man-hours
Note: The factory should take approval from a higher authority for which workers and activities should be considered for the unmeasured man-hours category.
How to calculate unmeasured man-hours?
Make the daily manpower report by line in different heads.Like, separate manpower in direct (sewing and non-sewing with SMV assigned operation) and indirect manpower. You can name heads as checkers, helpers, marker-man etc., or by including activities that should be considered as unmeasured work.
You will get a headcount of manpower in each category. Sum up the manpower under the unmeasured man-hours category. Check if all of them were present in the line for full shift hours. Some operators might work partially on the sewing line and produce SAH and some hours in unmeasured works. So, separate working hours accordingly to get accurate data.
Next also calculate the percentage of unmeasured man-hours of the total hours worked in a line.