Unit Production System or UPS is a popular jargon to denote apparel manufacturing system and at times meaning material handling system. Yes, it is true that Inge Davidson, who invented Unit Production System, also invented overhead material handling system for transporting cut components on the sewing floor. But, the fact remains that Unit Production System (UPS) is basically a manufacturing system while overhead material handling system is merely an enabler (equipment) to help the system perform. There are several myths regarding UPS which needs to be redressed and which Professor Prabir Jana from National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi demystifies.

“Scientific training can be defined as an art that allows transmitting to the operators, valid experiences, rational methods of work with right specifications matured through repeated research and practical experimentations achieved after many years of hard work,” says Francesco Bellino, Apparel Manufacturing Specialist, elucidating the importance of scientific training and its achievable outcomes.

Employee productivity is a combination of correct methods, well setup machinery, good quality, available materials and employee motivation. If all of these are in place, the outcome will be a correct specification garment, in the time that the company has costed for, to be delivered when the customer wants it. The role of management is to make sure these five cornerstones are in place.

Discrimination in salaries for similar jobs often reflects in disgruntlement and dissatisfaction among workers and often leads to high turnover of workers quitting the job, work stoppages, jealousies, heated arguments between management and workers. Managers may apprehend and express dissatisfaction over the informal way of assigning pay packet for a particular job. Identifying compensable factors plays a central role in equitable job evaluation. A job is usually compared with all such similar jobs before a compensable factor is arrived at. For example the HR Manager may choose to include ‘decisionmaking’ for a Manager’s job, though this may seem inappropriate while defining an Operator’s job. So how to conduct a good job evaluation and what is its importance, Prabir Jana from NIFT, New Delhi along with Team StitchWorld explains, highlighting some aspects when searching for a ‘suitable post’.

‘Green’ is the buzz word of the trade today. With more and more consumers stressing on buying sustainable products, the retailers are obliged to follow and adopt sustainable methods of doing business and expect the same from its partners around the world. However, for many manufacturers, green is a mission. Pratibha Syntex in Pithampura, Madhya Pradesh is a major player in the textile and garment industry in the last decade with a group turnover of Rs. 560 crores as on 31 March 2010. With one of the earliest green initiatives in the Indian garment manufacturing industry, Pratibha started off with a green factory in Pithampura SEZ in 2009 and it took around two years and an investment of Rs. 40 crore to implement green concept. Team StitchWorld visited the facility to check out the initiatives taken by the company towards a sustainable future.

Productivity improvement in cutting-sewing-finishing is the first and foremost objective of many garment organizations. Improvement can be achieved through various means like Method improvement; Re-arranging the layout; Training; and Process improvement are some of them. In the second article of the series, Paul F. Bowes, Managing Project Director of Performance for Business Productivity Services (www.leanapparelsolutions.com), a supply chain consultancy firm operating in the UK and Asia supporting the apparel industry, focuses on sewing floor employees. However, the concepts and techniques are applicable to all personnel, all methods of working and all processes.

Laguna Clothing, the Bangalore-based shirt manufacturing giant with a turnover of Rs. 120 crores has just commenced operations at a new factory in Seegekote village, about 7 km from Kanakpura town in Karnataka. Built in an area of 110,000 sq. ft., this new initiative would directly surge up the capacity of the company to 5 million shirts a year, an increment of 150%, with modest projections to take the company turnover to Rs. 300 crores, by 2012-13.

An absolutely true phrase – “Time is money” – was the title of the article published in the July edition of StitchWorld. A fundamental technique of measuring time in the garment industry is ‘cycle timing’. However many companies do not use this facility or do not know how to use the information it can generate. Paul Collyer, a garment industry expert with over 37 years of international exposure in production management, look at the practical applications of cycle timing.

Simple and basic styles have always found a readymade solution with the technology suppliers of the industry. But how to capture that market where one faces new and complex styles every day? And how to devise solutions to such production problems when styles are novel and complexity unforeseen… are the critical challenges. Breaking down such complexities to simple operations requires a sharp, engineered and experienced mind. Also, investments in terms of time and money are required, but that is where the profit margins are. Team StitchWorld met Brian Long, Vice-President (Technical) at Orient Craft who does all these and more. In the course of the interaction he shared his problem solving experience of 46 years. “Every problem has a solution!” claims Brian, who leads the sampling division of Orient Craft.

Lint generation and its removal from the knitting area has been a nagging problem for the knitting industry world over with no complete and effective solutions in sight. To solve lint problems, various companies from all over the world have offered their solutions from time to time, but they all have proven to be incomplete in one way or the other. Mukesh Gupta, an accomplished designer of knitting plants and a specialist in lint extraction techniques, has developed a new and effective design of lint extraction from circular knitting plants, along with Arjun Aggarwal. The all-embracing new way and a completely effective solution for lint extraction is proposed to increase the effectiveness of return air systems, i.e. numbers of air replacements per hour and at the same time reduce the power consumption. A patent for this design has also been applied for.