Though confronted with unprecedented changes, the apparel industry has continuously made efforts to upgrade their operations according to the fast moving retail environment and home furnishing industry which is now fast catching up in this endeavour. Amongst those who are bringing about the change is Jawandsons India, one of the pioneers of Home Furnishing industry based in Ludhiana. Relying on consultant services to improve operations, training women, continuously upgrading systems, going for buyer-vendor alliance is enabling the company to transform its business into a success model.
Working with big international retailers such as Tesco, Carrefour, ZARA home, Mother Care, Auchan and Target Corporation etc., the Ludhiana based exporter works on high volumes. But to generate such volumes in a synchronized system is important wherein the productivity should be high and prices low. Therefore to enhance their productivity, retain its present buyers and double the business within the next 6 years, the company is incorporating important changes with the help of one of its biggest Spanish buyer, who has been working with them for the last 12 years utilising around 90 per cent of the company’s production capacity.
“We are into this business for last 35 years and learned each and every thing step by step. Whatever we earned, we reinvested all in the business. Neither it was easy nor it was tough. Now in Ludhiana, young generation is coming forward and working awesomely.” G.B. Singh, Managing Director, Jawandsons
Despite being a volume-based exporter, Jawandsons manufactures various product categories such as bed linen, cushions, throws, curtain, and items such as baby bibs, decorative items, etc. Time to time the company innovates in terms of its product offerings to meet the ever-rapidly changing consumer demand. A part of the Oster Group, which does annual business of 40 million Euros, it is constantly working along with its buyers, integrating their suggestions within the system for inclusive growth. Giving an example G. B. Singh, MD of the company says, “We used to ship 3,000 sets of crochet flowers every week with 5 pieces per set, which were earlier being made by 2,500 home based workers. But, monitoring these home workers is not possible and this issue became a primary concern for our buyers and the company as well. To aid us in tackling this issue, the buyer facilitated an R&D and with their help we were able to produce similar products on a machine.”
Similarly, Kaizen was also implemented by the buyer’s team in the company showing tremendous results in four areas – reduction of fabric wastage in baby bibs by 15 per cent; increased productivity of crochet decorative flowers from 250 to 395 pieces; improvement in quality check from 83 pieces to 125 pieces with same manpower and decline in rejection rate to 9.5 per cent from 18 per cent. Not restricted to production alone, the Spanish buyer has also helped Jawandsons on issues such as compliance and quality.
Apart from buyers, the company is also working closely with WMA, a Sri Lanka based consultancy firm to improve its efficiency and provide training to its existent workforce, setting a rare example for home furnishing company to hire a foreign consultant. “Stitching training by WMA experts to the women is proving fruitful and now stitched products are our strength. Buyers have also noticed this and are helping us by giving more orders of such products. Actually we wish to empower the women by offering them work, so we are focusing on employing more and more women from nearby villages. It was also not easy so we took many motivational steps like showing them movies such as Chak De India so that they can learn about being self-independent and also by creating different stitching halls for them. Now we have 35 per cent women in this unit out of the total workforce of 1,200 workers, which was only 10 per cent earlier. WMA’s training played a vital role in this,” informed Gian Singh, the young face of the company, who takes care of production. The company has recently got an order of around 3,60,000 pieces in knitted shoe which have to be completed within a period of 4 months. Earlier the company somehow managed to complete small orders but with the intervention of WMA experts the company has changed the layout plan and created a special team within the company to work on it more effectively.
To facilitate smooth operation throughout the company, it has recently opted for Microsoft Dynamics ERP system, whereas to work in areas of sustainability, the company has achieved reduction of its water consumption by almost half through using modified washing machines. Going forward in the next phase, the company will ensure the use of continuous washing which will further reduce the water consumption. Himani Talwar, QA Manager and pillar of the unit claims, “Our focus is not only on reducing the consumption of resources, we also want to ensure their best utilization at every stage so that all the used water goes to the plantation after purification. Rain water harvesting is another initiative that we are considering for the same.”
The above initiatives have helped the company to be more competent and productive and though the implementation of suggestions by its buyers from system upgradation of factory designs to worker welfare and compliance has somehow been difficult, but its fruitful application has made the company cost-efficient, enabling them to work on thin margins of around 5-7 per cent. Further, the company is planning to expand into spinning and dyeing. “Our buyer is selling at a very low price so margins are very thin. To keep pace with it we will continue working on our efficiencies. In the coming 6-7 years it seems that spinning/dyeing is the section where we can improve. We trust our investments and modernization plans, which we have been bringing about for the last 35 years of business by carefully reinvesting our profits back into the business rather than any other field.” concludes G. B. Singh.
