Innovative methods of marketing and selling of consumer goods are the order of the current business world… Hatching of different business models which aim to fast-spread the marketing and retailing of products are so frequent and similar to the gush of smartphone models. They compete with each other to offer extreme levels of shopping comfort and satisfaction to the consumers. One of the biggest consumer goods, the apparel (sector) is also poised much ahead in “selling strategies” over “manufacturing strategies” nowadays. In tune with this trend, apparel professionals are highly attracted to the marketing sector than manufacturing field, leaving brain-drain to the latter. Even traditional syllabus in the apparel colleges to educate manufacturing aspects to the students to become production managers has largely been replaced with the conglomerate of marketing and selling techniques. At least in India, the educated lot is deserting the apparel manufacturing management jobs sector, which is already a non-preferential job sector for workers who aim tech-savvy manufacturing jobs (electronics, software, automobile, etc.) over garment making. Currently, the priority of research in the “consumer product management laboratory” is being shifted towards improving marketing aspects than production output. But, can selling happen without manufacturing? Jayapal Nair, Apparel Manufacturing Expert, Consultant and Author shares the vital characteristics for the production manager…
To uphold any successful marketing/selling strategy by executing the “apple cart”, it is imperative to have the support from manufacturing sector by providing required volume of product with quality on time. Since both domestic and export readymade garment sectors are wide open with huge demands, the manufacturing sector cannot be allowed to limp.
Production Manager – The Corner Stone
To establish an efficient apparel manufacturing environment, its foundation should be stronger, which can be done by none other than the production manager. It is his skills and capability that make the difference as he is the critical bridge between the company’s financial goals and workers.
The formula in physics for Pressure = Force/Area, holds good in the garment factory by the act of production manager. In a manufacturing environment, ‘Force’ can be considered as the units to be produced to meet the shipment date while ‘Area’ is the number of days available to produce the same. If the production manager manages the Force (= units to be produced in the time frame) consistently well throughout the Area (= number of days available), the pressure is nominal every day on everybody. On the other hand, if he ill-manages the force – while the Area (= number of days) is automatically getting reduced since the shipment date cannot slide – the Pressure will shoot up. Subsequently, the top management will have to be on their toes to avert a possible air lifting/cancellation of shipment by putting workers on overtime or do partial air-lifting of goods – all at an additional cost.
So, the Presence of a skilful, vigilant and sensible production manager with a go-getter attitude is very important on the production floor.
The traits and the deliverables of an ideal production manager
Of course, he/she has to take many avatars at the same time to efficiently manage the show. Even though there are functional departments in the organization such as planning, quality, technical, maintenance, industrial engineering, human resources, compliance, administration, merchandising, etc., the production manager has to coordinate through all these departments based on real facts and figures to achieve speedy solutions that can translate into production output at a higher efficiency level.
The required traits and corresponding deliverables are described below:
1. Accounting control skills
• Monitor input/output figures correctly.
• Co-relate between work-in-progress figures to correctly assess production completion period and formulate strategies to restore slide, if any.
• Compare actual resources (man, machine and material) against budgeted resources with an eye for cost reduction and reduction of wastage.
2. Human resource management skills
• To handle workers’ grievances without any favouritism and to maintain discipline.
• To motivate and generate a sense of ownership in workers.
• Be an empathetic leader to win respect from workers.
• Precise mass communication skill to communicate targets, objectives, company policies and emergencies.
3. Administrative skills
• To keep an eye on the support supplies like transportation, food, housekeeping, etc. to demand its on-time performance.
• To learn and understand health, safety, social, security compliances and monitor its implementation in his area of command.
• To understand standards and systems, and maintain firmly without deviation.
4. Core skills
a) Industrial engineering: To apply industrial engineering techniques to improve productivity, develop skills, and effective utilization of resources. Training skills to develop the manpower under him.
b) Quality engineering/assurance: To evaluate the quality report, do root cause analysis, formulate corrective actions, implement and monitor its adequacy using the resources in hand.
c) Maintenance: Knowledge on machinery, attachments, and their effective utilization to reduce manpower or to improve quality. Encourage proper usage of machines by workers to reduce breakdowns.
d) Technical: Knowledge on garment making methods. Ability to understand customer requirements.
5. Personality
• Ability to work under constraints and ability to convert constraints into opportunities from the past lessons learned.
• Ability to respond quickly to actual situations and demand support in time to avert eventualities.
• An attitude to learn best practices from elsewhere and try to implement for the betterment of production process.
• Self-learning attitude.
• Ability to understand verbal, written communication and to reply precisely with supporting facts and figures.
Focus on enhancing output and saving the cost
All the above traits are important for a production manager to perform the job successfully and lift up the efficiency curve. A professionally educated (or educated through experience from an organized setup) person can develop these traits quickly and can do justice to this role in the real sense. Besides, he/she should be entrusted with a limited number of assembly lines (maximum 3-4) to focus on all the activities and achieve higher efficiency. If he spreads his attention to many assembly lines, he will miss out many focal points and those will torpedo the higher target. Further, he has to hide behind conventional excuses for not achieving the targets.
A small calculation on cost saving
If a production manager handles six assembly lines and produces 500 pieces at 40 per cent efficiency each, he will produce a total of 3,000 pieces a day. If a right production manager is entrusted with three lines where he has the possibility to hit 80 per cent, he will make 1,000 pieces per line which is 3,000 pieces from three lines, using much fewer resources of machine and manpower. Definitely, his value addition is higher than the other model.
A trim and slim model of manufacturing will have the potential to earn higher revenue. Attracting the rightly qualified and motivated production managers to the manufacturing side is the first step to building efficiency and compete with the market needs. As the adage goes: “Arnold Schwarzenegger is not built in a day!”
