In a company, management needs to review the performance of their production units. They need to know how its production plants and lines are performing. What are the performance trends in various KPIs in the last 3-6 months.
If things are not going well and performance is below the benchmark (company benchmark or industry benchmark), what could be possible reasons for performance loss over a certain duration? They would like to understand how the team will handle the root causes that hinder smooth production flow.
In this article, I will use an apparel manufacturing business as an example. I will also show you, as a production manager or a production factory professional (IE, MIS team), how you can design your performance checklists and charts and present them to your manager.
Learn how to prepare the performance KPI reports with OCS.The Need for Monthly Performance Reports:
It is an important task for a production manager or an IE manager to summarize the performance of the production floor and present it to the management. Also share the floor performance with the floor people including sewing operators, line supervisors, quality team, and other supporting departments which will boost the morale of the shop floor employees.
When it comes to sharing the factory’s performance and its trends, it is not only about the production team and top management. You should show the performance data to the supporting department heads as well. Supporting departments like production planning, production merchandising, cutting team, HR team, accounts, shipping department, and other teams that are part of your company. By seeing the factory performance they can also relate how the floor works and their performance.
Some departments may not be interested in your performance results and monthly meetings. It is okay. For such cases, just show them the result and free them from the meeting. No need to discuss the future action plan and root causes of performance reduction in certain periods with department HODs.
The Benefits of Presenting KPI Results
It has many benefits. The performance result will motivate employees to do better in the following months. The performance results create pressure on the production and quality teams to do better in the following months. All teams (HODs) will know the cause of the current performance. The current performance of the factory is the result of the combined support and cooperation of all departments. Individuals will be aware of their responsibilities in achieving the company's goal and will come forward to help in doing better in the following months. When the shop floor performs well and shows good performance, celebrate it and mark it as a new performance benchmark.
I used to share and discuss the floor performance results with the companies I handled projects from the production and quality data. I will show you the key performance indicators (KPIs) that help understand floor performance. You can apply these in your company.
To compile the required reports, you will need an Excel spreadsheet, data analysis templates, and proficiency in creating presentations using MS PowerPoint. I hope you possess these skills. If necessary, consider enlisting someone who can make your presentation using the data provided.1. Monthly Line Efficiency Trend
In some earlier articles, I have discussed the different ways of calculating line efficiency. One can calculate line efficiency based on line output quantity and style SAM. Here line output quantity can be the stitched garment quantity or the QC passed quantity. In factories that practice end-of-line finishing and packing processes, they consider the packed quantity the line output. You need to decide which quantity your factory used for line efficiency calculation.Calculate line efficiency using the following formula and then using the following parameters.
Total Hours produced = (Produced Quantity X Garment SAM)/60
Line Efficiency = (Hours Produced /Hours Worked) x 100
Garment factories that don't assign SAM to the garment, can calculate line efficiency based on the daily production target quantity and actual produced quantity by the line.
2. Monthly Production Trends
The monthly production volume from a production line would depend on the product type and styling. Whatever the criteria are, collect monthly combined production data of all styles and designs, and add the monthly production on your presentation slide.If you see abnormal production volume in any month compared to other months then you can add footnotes and mention the reason(s). The same can be further discussed if anybody asks questions about the low production. The best way is to make another slide showing style-wise production volume, production duration, style SAM, and number of style changeovers. These 4 variables will answer the question of low production volume or very high production quantity in some months.
While presenting production volume, you can show the matrix along with the line chart.
Slide#3: Monthly Production Trend
You can further show the breakdown of the production volume by style and by line.
If there were style changeovers in a month you can show the number of changeovers and style run time. That data will be useful for the management to understand the reasons for the production drops (if it exists).
3. Non-Productive Time (NPT) Percentage out of total hours worked
It is all about the utilization of available resources. Utilization of machines and available man-hours. In a factory, operators are given 8 hours (regular shift) of standard production time. Out of 8 hours, if an operator is not able to work for a certain time (let’s say 30 minutes in total she was idle in a day) due to a machine breakdown or due to unavailability of work, the production line will be unable to utilize her full 8 hours. In this example, the NPT time percentage for an operator is 6.25%.By making a slide on NPT analysis KPI, you can show your management the percentage of non-productive time by month.
In the following slide, I have shown the total working hours available (Worked Hours) by month and reported NPT time. Then calculate the NPT percentage.
Slide#4: Showing Total Hours / NPT Hours / NPT Percentage
Data set: The above trend chart is prepared based on the following non-productive data
Learn more about NPT time data capturing, and the Key benefits of NPT data analysis.
4. Top 5 NPT Categories
In the previous slide, we presented the total hours of non-productive time by month. Calculate the NPT percentage compared to the total hours worked by the line.
In the next slide, show the top 5 NPT categories for which operators could not utilize the hours. Top reasons that cause operators to sit idle during shift hours or may be working on repair work.
Looking at this chart, the line supervisors and production manager will get an idea of eliminating the occurrence of such issues. They may work on reducing these NPT categories in the following days.
Slide#5: Non-productive hours by NPT Categories
5. End Line Quality Performance (DHU and Percentage Defectives Analysis)
Quality production is more important than just making garments. It is a common fact that garment factories deploy quality checkers and quality controllers to verify product quality. The quality control process is an inherent part of the garment manufacturing process.
Some RMG companies count daily production based on the quality control passed garments from the end of the production line. In those factories, all stitched garments are not counted as day’s production. No quality garment, no production. Though the production line stitches garments, their performance would be less if you don't focus on quality stitching. This will increase the repair work and nonproductive time.
Your company might be following a quality control system. And the factory is capturing basic quality control data. To prepare end-of-line quality performance, you need to capture daily garment checked quantity, defective pieces found, and total defects found in the checked lot. With this data, you can make this chart. To make this chart, you need to collect daily end-of-line inspection data as the following table. Calculate the DHU and percentage defective on a daily and monthly basis.
If you have a quality control team and the team analyzes quality management data regularly, you can consider these Garment quality KPIs for apparel manufacturers.
6. Pareto Chart of the Top 5 Defects
Root Cause Analysis of Quality Issues (Top 5 Defects based on frequency of occurrence). From the above slide, you know the quality performance of your factory. Line by line. Some lines produce 6 percent defective garments with 8 defects per 100 garments checked. Therefore it is important to identify frequently found defect types and their frequency level.
Prepare a Pareto chart with top 5 or top 10 defects.
7. In-Line Quality Performance
It is better to catch the quality issues early in the production process. So factories install in-line quality inspection. Capture in-line garment checking data and prepare DHU and defective percentage reports same way as explained in point 5 and 6. Further, prepare Pareto for the top 5 defects found in the inline inspection.Conclusion
I hope you find some valuable information in this article. All these performance reports are essential for managing floor production and product quality. Irrespective of your department and job profile, if you are interested in the managerial position in a garment production unit, these performance reports will help in providing the factory performance status.
You can start preparing presentations with these KPIs and present them to your management. Schedule a monthly, Bi-monthly, or quarterly meeting to discuss plant performance analysis. Later add more KPIs by looking into the problem areas. For your reference, you can include all these KPIs in your measures.
If you like to learn more about different KPIs measured by garment factories, and methods of KPI calculation, you can read my book (eBook) ‘Garment Maker’s KPI - Why Measure and How to Measure’. This book has covered some of the common KPIs measured by departments. I have explained why you measure those KPIs on a monthly and quarterly basis. I have also included templates (free download) with this ebook.
Related posts:
KPI Template (Downloadable File)
KPI Dashboard: An Effective Reporting Tool for Garment Factories