Productivity improvement of cutting, sewing and finishing sections of a garment factory through value stream mapping a case study

Abstract

On time delivery with quality and quantity is important for any manufacturing industry. At present, lead time is decreasing day by day and customer requirements also continuously changing. To fulfill customer demand whole production system should be more capable and efficient. For this reason productivity is important for manufacturing industries. Productivity can be defined as a ratio between output and input. Manufacturing industries are always having lots of production processes for desired products. Out of these processes some are not essential and do not add any value to the product. Most of time, management is not quite aware of the non-value-adding processes. If we observe a garments production line we will see that there were lots of In-process inventories and waiting time between almost every sequential operation. No strict and precise work distribution was followed by many workers. Material’s used to travel large distance from input receiving to needle check and cartooning. Many of these movements and handlings are totally unnecessary. Sometimes reworks are increasing the total completion time. As a result, the productivity was hampered. So, a smooth, streamlined and continuous flow is really necessary to avoid all such unexpected occurrence. The objective of value stream mapping is to identify value-added activities and non-value-added activities. Value stream maps should reflect what actually happens rather than what is supposed to happen so that opportunities for improvement can be identified. Value Stream Mapping is often used in process cycle-time improvement projects since it demonstrates exactly how a process operates with detailed timing of step-by-step activities. It is also used for process analysis and improvement by identifying and eliminating time spent on non-value-added activities. The present study focuses on improving the overall productivity of cutting, sewing and finishing sections through value stream mapping (VSM). Different techniques like process integration, job sharing, multitasking etc. will be implemented to improve the current state situation. Three different product lines (Jacket, Polo shirt, and tee shirt) will be considered to implement this study, and the productivity as well as line efficiency will be compared before and after implementing the technique.