At the time when competitors from Tirupur are facing the heat of compliance and environment audits, Ludhiana’s knitting units have been investing in high-end processing and chemical treatment setups, as a result, successfully tapping some of the business that has moved out of Tirupur, especially in the local market. Yet, the industry is facing challenges and many claim that growth has stagnated. In a recent visit to the city, Team StitchWorld met 3 companies – Superfine Knitters, Rider Exports and Knitwell – who have engaged a consultant to shore up their processes. Standing at different stages of implementation, these companies are doing what they think is necessary to survive and prosper in the present market conditions.
Like most other manufacturing hubs Ludhiana, despite a chilling winter which has come as a boom for the sweater manufacturers of the region with many boasting of unprecedented sales, has been riddled by many roadblocks to growth. “During last year, the yarn prices have gone up by more than 100% along with an increase in labour cost due to shortage of manpower and general overheads like electricity, diesel and accessories, which has taken its toll on the profitability. In fact since 2008 there had been stagnation, if not decline, in the performance of the Ludhiana industry, and financial year 2012-13 has been rather bad,” says Ajit Lakra, MD of Superfine Knitters and President, Ludhiana Knitters Association.
The three companies who have engaged Chandrajith Wickramasinghe (popular as CJ) a Sri Lankan expat, with a decade’s of experience of working with MAS Holdings and organizations like Victoria’s Secret, MAST and M&S, share the systems they are implementing to achieve better productivity, quality and faster deliveries for healthier bottomlines, along with achieved results…
Shortage of trained workforce is indeed a major constraint and the industry is taking steps to address this bottleneck. While Sanjeev Talwar, MD, Knitwell, a 600-machine knitwear manufacturing company that produces for the likes of Adidas, Reebok, Louis Philippe and Van Heusen, already runs an operator training centre within his premises, Ajit is also planning to do the same in his company, though he is actively advocating the need to establish Skill Development Centres and bring women workers into the industry.
The rising input costs and increasing competition are constant threats to the industry and the only alternative for the companies is to gear up their productivity, define quality levels and deliver the manufactured product on time. The reasons for getting into system improvement may be different for different companies but in the end they all aspire for the same result – better bottom lines. “We did not want to add extra machinery, but to optimize our current capacity to achieve the triple agenda of productivity, quality and on-time delivery, improving working systems is the only option,” says Ajit. Superfine Knitters has a current monthly capacity of 2,00,000 pieces and the aim is to take it to 3,00,000. Secondly, the focus of the company is on improving quality. “Continuity of order is extremely crucial for our line of business and we believe that if one is consistent at quality, the buyers stick on. Since our buyers are mostly high-end, like ITC and Reebok (SA), they are ready to pay a little extra for assured quality,” adds Ajit.
While companies like Superfine Knitters reacted to changing market conditions and are now moving towards system optimization, there are others for whom it was the natural course to take. “I was making 40,000 pieces per month and there came a point when I realized that moving forward from here is not possible with our existent setup. Further growth demanded us to bring in experts and implement systems to improve processes,” says Sanjeev. With this realization, Knitwell hired IE and quality personnel from Sri Lanka and recruited students from GIT Amritsar to give a structure to the company. Once the systems are in place, Sanjeev will be able to monitor two units sitting at one location.
In the case of Rider Exports, it was the buyer who pushed them to streamline their systems. “We work for buyers like Adidas, Puma, Converse, US Polo, who carry regular technical audits in our company. It was initially suggested by them that we need to implement certain systems to improve quality and productivity. Based on that we developed our own set of systems and also hired services of an international consultant,” informs Rajeev Talwar, Managing Director, Rider Exports, a company worth Rs. 27 crores.
Though some of these companies have come forward and taken the road to redemption, the numbers are still small. Sharing his experience Ajit says, “It is still difficult to find the right consultant who would align themselves with the vision of the management and meet its requirements within an affordable budget. Today, most consultants work at a very high fee and prefer expensive machinery. Further, most of the companies in Ludhiana face a space constrain and systems need a minimum but optimum space to work. Finally, and most importantly, the push by the management is missing. Any such implementation can never work if the owner and management do not try to understand and execute it from their own end.”
The push by the management is missing. Any such implementation can never work if the owner and management do not try to understand and execute it from their own end. Moreover, many companies tend to overlook the harmony in the thought process of a consultant, which basically means how seamlessly the person can blend in with a company’s culture.
Superfine Knitters Re-engineering and Consolidating
Under the able guidance of its MD, Ajit Lakra, Superfine Knitters is in the process of complete layout re-engineering. In order to limit the cost of overheads, Ajit is planning to bring his existing 2 units under one roof. The composite unit, apart from housing 650 sewing machines, would also store the administrative office to ensure better control over each department. “We are re-engineering the entire factory so that the man and material movement between departments remains minimum”, says Ajit. Not just the layout, even the manufacturing process is being re-engineered. Previously, a ‘full piece group system’ was being followed, under which the garment was stitched by a group of 3-4 people. Under this system, only one person would do all the lockstitch operations, the other would do all the overlock operations, and so on. This system resulted in poor efficiency and high WIP of up to 10 days. Instead, an assembly line system is being implemented to optimize production and reduce the WIP to less than one per day.
The layout change will be followed by 5S implementation across every department, so as to create a foundation for Lean. Ajit is also planning to implement manual hanger system on the shop floor to optimize material handling. The motive behind these endeavours was simple: to achieve better profitability. And therefore, there are no imminent plans for any expansion; the company would rather concentrate on optimizing the existing capacities and stabilizing the improvements.
Rider Exports targeting Quality Improvement
Housing 14 computerized flat knit machines, 400 sewing and linking machines producing 50,000 pieces, Rider Exports has been an exclusive supplier of sweaters to some of the leading brands like Adidas and Puma, also supplying to US Polo and Converse. The company is frequented by its buyers for technical and social audits and Rajeev gives the credit to the technical team for establishing better systems.“ There are only two ways of maintaining the image and the bottom-line of your company in the market and that is through quality and on-time delivery. Neither of them can be guaranteed if the company does not have proper systems with well-defined SOPs,” reasons Rajeev.
The focus of the system development at Rider Exports has been first to improve quality and then target the productivity. The company has implemented traffic light system in the lines for effective monitoring of quality and efficiency. Under this system, a green, yellow and red placard is seen hanging on the machine. Colour green stands for “satisfactory quality”, yellow for “quality that needs improvement” and red for “unacceptable quality”. The QC moving through the lines, checks the quality of output at each machine, and as per the quality coming out of the machine, places the appropriate placard on the attached top stand on the machine. This helps the supervisors or production managers, to easily identify the low-on-quality operator and attend to the quality issue.
The inspection of a garment at Rider Exports follows “clockwise checking” under which the checker has to begin from one part of the garment and move clockwise from that part to another and so on, ultimately ending at the part from where he began. This ensures that no part of the garment is missed from checking, as it may happen when the checker is randomly checking the garments. The purpose here is not to improve quality but to identify the defects at various stages so as to bring down rejections and stop the defected pieces from moving forward in the line. The identification of defects by this method has improved by 70% from the conventional method of checking.
The SOPs for every process are clearly defined and pasted on a board at the entrance of respective departments. Apart from these tools, there is strong emphasis on keeping the company systematic, hygienic and orderly. 5S has been implemented in the fabric and yarn warehouse and also at the sewing floor where each PO is now kept under pre-defined racks. This implementation improves quality issues, like using the right matching thread colours each time, reducing the amount of time wasted in searching for accessories/trims or tools/equipments, thus improving the daily shift start up and reducing the changeover time. The change helped reduce the throughput time by 50%.
These systems are relatively new for Rider Exports and the journey so far has not been easy. “The biggest hindrance that we came across while implementing these systems was the attitude of the people, as most of my mid-level staff has been with the company for long, and have their set way of working, which makes them reluctant to accept change. However, slowly, they are noticing the benefits and accepting the change,” says Rajeev. Having laid the foundation for more scientific systems, Rider Exports would soon be implementing Lean tools.
Knitwell implementing Lean for Growth
Having started with 4 machines in 1984, Knitwell has come a long way, growing into a 650-machine company with a turnover of over Rs. 30 crores. Midway through this journey, Sanjeev realized that the company is becoming too big to be run by primitive make-shift systems. He went on to recruit professionals from Sri Lanka to hold key positions in IE, Quality or as the GM. Garment technologists were hired from GIT, Amritsar at mid-management level. The layout of the factory was changed to make it more streamlined for man and material flow between departments. These toddling steps towards improvement have successfully played out over the years and Knitwell can most certainly boast of one of the most structured and well-equipped facility in the region in terms of systems.
I was making 40,000 pieces per month and there came a point when I realized that moving forward from here is not possible with our existent setup. Further, growth demanded us to bring in experts and implement systems to improve processes.” – Sanjeev Talwar, MD, Knitwell
The traffic light system and clockwise checking are already being followed at Knitwell. Amongst the many more systems that have helped set this facility as a benchmark for others in Ludhiana to follow, is the implementation of card system for alteration. Since the company decided against allotting a dedicated line for rework or alteration, the rework is done on the production lines itself. As a rule, on the shop floor a maximum number of 9 garments for alteration are allowed within the line. At the feeding table there are cards, numbered 1 to 9, which are tagged to the garments that require rework, before feeding the garment into the line. The 1st three cards are coloured ‘blue’, the next three ‘yellow’, and the last three are coloured ‘pink’. In this system, if the card numbered 9 attached to the garment to be reworked reaches into the line, the entire line is stopped to first rework on the garments. The system roughly works on the concept of “early warning”. The cards are so coloured, so that the operators would have an idea of how many garments are in the line for rework, so that they can speed up the work if the ‘red’ colour cards are already in and thus save the loss of work due to the stopping of line. On completion of rework, the cards come back to the feeding table and also the lower card number takes precedence over higher numbers while being fed again.
We work for buyers like Adidas, Puma, Converse, US Polo, who carry regular technical audits in our company. It was initially suggested by them that we need to implement certain systems to improve quality and productivity.” – Rajeev Talwar, Managing Director, Rider Exports
Finishing is being done in an assembly line; instead of the normal practice where different finishing operations are performed one by one, and the entire lot has to wait on one table until the last operation of the table is performed before it is moved to another table where the next operation takes place. The new finishing line has been setup which includes 2 thread cutters, 2 initial checkers, 2 ironers, 1 measurement checker, 2 final checkers and 2 operators for tagging and folding. The effect of the assembly line system in finishing is astounding. The same number of people who were earlier finishing 2,500 garments per10-hour shift are now producing 3,200 pieces in 8 hours through 4 lines, an increase of over 60% in productivity.
A U-shaped sit down assembly line is also running on an experimental basis, which is established with the aim to follow unit progressive system. Kanban tables are present at the start of this line for systematic feeding of parts. Even though the line is not working up to the planned efficiency and haven’t yet achieved its goal of single piece movement, the bundle size has considerably been reduced, and now not more than 3-4 garments are moving in a bundle from over 12 earlier.
[bleft]We did not want to add extra machinery, but optimize our current capacity to achieve the triple agenda of productivity, quality and on-time delivery, improving working systems.” – Ajit Lakra, MD, Superfine Knitters[/bleft]
The inventory management in the trim store works very systematically, and is based on the Lean ideology, a part of 5S implementation in the company. The racks in the storage room are coded A to Z and have an attached board that lists down each and every trim it stores along with the shelve number on which it will be found. Even if the store in-charge is not present, anyone can walk in and retrieve whatever he needs. If the dependency is on one, the in-charge, then only one person’s request can be processed at one time. With the use of the system, the trim issue also comes down to one minute from 90 minutes. Also, when the store gets the production plan for a style, the store in-charge collects the trims for that style and keeps it in a basket, one week ahead of production schedule.
A machine board is maintained in the maintenance department. There are different coloured chips for different machines, based on their type and make. The machine board lists down the lines running in production as columns and under each column, the chips are placed as per the structure of the lines. The coloured chip implementation ensures faster changeover time in the pre-setting of machines for a new style as it is easier to track down the machines using this system. From 6 to 8 hours, the machine setting time comes down to 1 to 1½ hours.
