Apparel Online India Magazine October 1st Issue 2018 | Page 53

RESOURCE CENTRE
Fiscal disruption is another issue
that has caused market disruption.
Every economy has to have a balance
between the money available and
the goods offered in the market. In
the past decade, it seems that the
Indian economy had lots of money
for investment and this increased
machine import that tied down
this surplus money. A large part of
this money that the textile/apparel
industries, including embroidery have
is cash based (not the export markets,
though). The Indian Government’s
two initiatives – Demonetisation and
GST – in the past two years created
lots of disruptions in the industry, and
manufacturers had difficulties with
re-adjusting their business models
and processes, especially to learn new
accounting procedures and manage
the business with less cash. Though,
both these policies are good for overall
economy in the long-run, adjustment
will take time. The devaluation of
rupee as against the dollar of late has
also disrupted the ability to import
machines.
So, what to do to be
more competitive?
Increase productivity, reduce cost:
This means, measuring costs very
accurately. Work smarter and not
harder! Many owners are looking for
cheaper labour, but this will not work
forever. What you need to do is to get
more productivity from the workers
by better organising the work and
reducing downtime on the machine
by reducing thread breaks and also
machine breakdowns. Better handling
and storing of fabrics, threads can
also reduce downtime. Many factories
are very dusty; this reduces machine
performance and increases downtime.
Air-conditioning may be considered
costly but it may increase quality,
so you would get better paying
embroidery jobs. Cleanliness and
tidiness at the factory floor increase
the workers’ awareness to quality
issues. Regular training on quality
also helps. Organising the workers
into competing teams is a very good
practice. Showing the score of the
‘green team’ and the ‘red team’
ESSENTIALS
Still, productivity
increase can
be achieved by
creating smart
workflows in the
factory where
goods travel in one
direction, machines
are placed
ergonomically,
so one worker
can attend two
machines, job
preparation areas
can be created
to speed up the
replacement of
fabric and frames
on the machines
and so on. Such
improvements
have to start from
the management
and trickle down
to the workers
and not the other
way round.
every week in reducing machine
downtime and wastage, etc. is a very
good motivator.
One issue with the textile-apparel
industry is that it traditionally
employs some of the lowest skilled
labour force in any country.
Therefore, increasing productivity
through training is usually a
difficult quest especially because
of the high turnover of workers.
Still, productivity increase can be
achieved by creating smart workflows
in the factory where goods travel
in one direction, machines are
placed ergonomically, so one worker
can attend to two machines, job
preparation areas can be created
speed up the replacement of fabric
and frames on the machines and so
on. Such improvements have to start
from the management and trickle
down to the workers and not the
other way round.
Create a brand name: ‘Make in India’
is an excellent initiative. But ‘Indian
Excellent Quality Embroidery’ is not
what we are aware of, but it should be
a long-term goal for factories. Years
ago, the ‘Just In Time’ system was
very popular, as through excellent
organisation and processes, this
reduced the cost of storage of parts.
Many Western buyers prefer to
place an order and get it to the store
only when it is needed. To work this
way requires a highly disciplined
management and workforce. My
feeling is that most embroidery units
do not yet operate at this disciplined
level, although we can see a new
generation of managers starting to
implement processes that lead in the
right direction.
Training and education should be the
key here. I think the key is to organise
training programmes first for owners
and managers where the various
aspects of productivity of the industry
units are analysed and shared, so
‘Best Practices’ can be shown. Second
is to identify embroidery skill sets.
Government assistance: To the best
of my knowledge, there is no official
embroidery training programme
in India, there are no industry
job categories (like Embroidery
Production Manager, Embroidery
Machine Operator, Embroidery
Designer) that would be a part of the
national job skill register or training
institutions that would offer training
for such job skill. The Government
needs to look at the outsourcing
process and infrastructure, how
the buying houses operate and
how the contracting is managed.
One major issue is compliance.
Contractors must satisfy a list of
criteria partially ensuring quality and
partially ensuring workers’ safety.
Indian Government could legislate
some general compliance categories
that would underpin the ‘Make in
India’ initiative and would attract
foreign buyers.
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