Traditionally, productivity was defined as how well a business converted input (such as labor, raw materials, machinery, capital, and so on) into output (products or services). But today, it is no longer limited to measuring the ratio of inputs and outputs. Now, productivity means a lot more than that. It entails working smarter and constantly looking for ways to improve overall efficiency almost anywhere in the business. In today’s highly competitive world, where almost every business is finding new ways to boost productivity, the apparel industry is no exception. In fact, for apparel manufacturing businesses, it gets even more important due to their labor-intensive nature and constantly evolving customer demands.
How to Improve Productivity and Quality
The world is changing rapidly and becoming more challenging with each passing day. Almost every business is focusing on how to improve productivity and quality in the workplace. Especially in apparel manufacturing businesses, the need for productivity process improvement is greater than in any other industry.
It is important to focus on areas that actually require attention, and one such area is the sewing lines across the production floor. This is a well-known fact that the efficiency of a manufacturing business is measured by determining how well all the sewing lines run. Maintaining the efficiency of a sewing line is an extremely important aspect of an apparel manufacturing business, but it is also one of the trickiest. The simple reason behind this is that all the key factors that determine efficiency are interrelated.
Here are a few benefits of streamlined sewing lines in the apparel manufacturing industry:
- Better Control
- Reduced Cost
- Maximized Productivity
- Higher Quality
To increase the productivity of the entire process, it is important to keep track of operators’ skills and efficiencies throughout the production floor. It can only be achieved when a proper sequential approach is followed and all the captured data is recorded properly.
Need for Automation
Why waste countless hours documenting and recording information on paper? An easier alternative is to use a cloud-based solution for things that require enormous man-hours. In today’s time, every single minute counts because time is considered as valuable as money. It is critical to save time that would otherwise be wasted performing repetitive tasks. In such a scenario, the need for advanced industrial engineering software along with quality Inspection software arises. It can not only help you streamline sewing processes but also improves overall productivity of the process.
Take Your Pick!
Now that you know how advanced industrial engineering software can help your apparel business, the main question is: how to find the best one.
LTLabs offers a cloud-based industrial engineering solution LTie, that can help you optimize your sewing line efficiency in real time. This system has been designed to increase efficiency, provide line setup suggestions while keeping your lines balanced, and monitor NPT throughout production. It also captures the operator’s machine skill and operational efficiency to generate a digital operator skills matrix, using which you can reshuffle the operator deployment if required.
Key Benefits
- Manpower Optimization
- Increased Efficiency
- Reduced Production Cost
Key Features
- Cloud-computing for line setup
- Auto-generate line set up with the highest LBR
- Drag and drop operators into lines
- Split or merge operations when needed
- Show operators list with matching skills and their past operations’ efficiency
- Generate changeover report for mechanics and line leader
- Replicate Old style
- Cloud-computing for line setup
- Real-time digital skills matrix
- Update operator skills automatically from mobile time study
- Determine line efficiency based on operators’ efficiency
- Perform bulk upload of skills through the LTie web application
- Mobile tools for shop-floor changes
- Perform real-time, time studies on operators
- Manage NPT information directly in the mobile app
- Record and update good output
- View line efficiency on the mobile dashboard
- Receive notification alerts when KPI targets fall below the threshold
- Real-time KPI dashboard
- Highlight KPI metrics to prioritize attention by setting targets
- Identify the top contributor impacting KPIs
- Highlight the top 5 contributors by NPT, LBR, performance, output, and efficiency
- View the dashboard in optimized TV mode
You can explore LTLabs’ complete range of Manufacturing Execution System (MES) solutions to find the one that matches your specific requirements. All our solutions are designed to serve different yet crucial stages of the apparel manufacturing cycle.