How to Calculate Manpower Requirement of Finishing Section?

Question: How to calculate manpower strength required in garment finishing? Please advice how to apply Industrial Engineering methods to improve finishing efficiency? … asked by Raju

To determine manpower requirement in finishing section follow the below steps

1. Define what all works/tasks that you perform in finishing section like checking, thread cutting, pressing, measurement, folding etc.


2. Time study of each work with your current workers OR do capacity study of your finishing room workers for each types of work. For example, as per your capacity study a worker can check 10 pieces/ hour, a folder can fold 25 pieces/hour. Or 80 pieces per day and 200 pieces per day respectively.

3. Now find the figure of Daily Production Target for finishing section. (Suppose finishing target 800 pieces daily)

4. So, manpower required in a finishing process = (Target quantity/ capacity per worker per day).

From the above example, you need 

   Total checker= 800/80 = 10 no. and 
   Total Folder man 800/200 = 4 no.

How to improve Finishing Efficiency:

In garment manufacturing Industrial Engineering (IE) tools and methods are primarily used in stitching floor to improve labor productivity and line efficiency. A factory can implement IE methods to improve finishing efficiency in a similar ways.

First to calculate (measure) actual efficiency of the finishing section you need to determine standard minutes of finishing jobs. To know how to determine standard minutes (SMV) of finishing jobs/operations read my earlier post – How to calculate SAM of a garment? Once you measured standard minutes of all finishing operations you will have do other calculation like finishing target, manpower requirement. line balancing etc.

Second step would be motion analysis, by which you will get opportunity areas.

Third step brainstorm with your colleagues and think how you can reduce material movement time, waiting time, operation cycle time for finishing jobs? By reducing these you can improve finishing efficiency.
To know more how sewing efficiency is increased by IEs read 20 Ways to Improve Productivity in Garment Production

Prasanta Sarkar

Prasanta Sarkar is a textile engineer and a postgraduate in fashion technology from NIFT, New Delhi, India. He loves writing how-to guide articles in the fashion industry niche. He has visited garment factories in many countries and implemented process improvement projects in numerous garment units in different continents including Asia, Europe, and South Africa.

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