In common parlance , teamwork is a group effort where all operations of one garment are done by a small group of multi-skilled operators wherein benefits of division of labour and special machinery and infrastructure are optimally utilised . In teamwork sewing , typically there are no supervisors , or quality checkers . Team members are empowered to take decisions themselves ( often through team leader ), self-check and are not allowed to make any defective pieces . In case of any defective piece produced , team members themselves have to discuss and resolve the problem .

Somewhat similar to progressive bundle unit ( PBU ) working principles , multiple members in the teamwork concept can start work on different components simultaneously , and gradually finish with a converging flow of materials where usually one operator completes the last operation . The operator may work in seating position , can maintain a healthy Work in Progress ( WIP ) between operations . This was necessitated in the Western countries in response to market pressure of quick response to retail sales as well as to reduce occupational health injuries associated with PBU . The objective was to minimise long lead time of PBU system , and reduce ergonomic vulnerability of repetitive work through job rotation .

One particular extreme form of teamwork called TSS , in fact , revolutionised and popularised this concept amongst industry practitioners , although it is not necessary or mandatory for any team to follow . This generated and /

Practitioners and enthusiasts kept reducing the WIP from number of bundles to zero , thus popularising the concept of single piece flow ( also called ‘ zero WIP ’ concept ). The moment the WIP becomes single piece , the component actually started moving from one operator to another .

or necessitated some associated practices and jargons that became synonymous with teamwork . In TSS , group of operators work in PBU / UPS system in a standard sewing mode where there are more machines than number of workers .

Single piece flow is mandatory for teamwork sewing

WRONG

To reduce sewing lead time , it is mandatory to reduce WIP ; however it is not mandatory to have a single piece workflow . Team can work with any number of pieces as long as lack of WIP does not hamper production of any operator . Actually while working with bare minimum WIP , the concept of KANBAN ( Kanban means visual signal in Japanese ) is followed . The last operator of the team visually controls the maximum WIP that can be kept between any two operations . The Kanban concept helps convert the flow of material from push to pull . Once the last operator picks up pieces from WIP bin to work , the predecessor operator gets a Kanban signal to replenish the WIP , so he / she picks up pieces from previous bin to work , thus creating a Kanban signal to predecessors ’ predecessor operator and this way the signal goes down the line till the first operator .

Practitioners and enthusiasts kept reducing the WIP from number of bundles to zero , thus popularising the concept of single piece flow ( also called ‘ zero WIP ’ concept ). The moment the WIP becomes single piece , the component actually starts moving from one operator to another .

Interestingly the pieces in the teamwork are not passed on from predecessor to successor , rather the

operator actually takes the piece from predecessor and keeps working till his / her successor takes the piece from him / her . ( Thus the jargon ‘ hands-off ’ originated )

WIP generally buffers the disparity or gap in the work content of different operators . Gradual decrease of WIP to single piece necessitated operator to hand over the piece to next operator rather than disposing it in the bin to be picked up by next operator .

Teamwork sewing is always done with machine-to-worker ratio of more than one

WRONG

It is always possible to have teamwork sewing with machineto-operator ratio as 1:1 . Teamwork demands sewing operations to be grouped together based on the required pitch time , similar machines and skill of operators . While grouping the operations from PBU to teamwork , sometimes it is felt that different types of machines / attachments are necessary while work content is very less . In high labour cost countries , it was also felt sensible to keep number of operators as minimum as possible . So more number of machines ’ work was allocated to less number of operators . In extreme form of teamwork in sewing , i . e . TSS , the number of machines is higher than number of operators and typical ratio is of 5:3 . This means for every 5 machines there are 3 operators . For a 5:3 machine-to-operator ratio the maximum machine utilisation is 60 % as 2 out of 5 machines are idle at any given point of time . This ratio is workable in the higher labour wage countries where cost of