Fibre2Fashion November Issue'17 | Page 54

INDIA Manufacturing excellence: The only way When compared to other competing countries, the efficiency and productivity levels of Indian textile sector is quite low. The government can have a R&D fund, which could be used for deploying state-of-art modern technologies. 54  | FIBRE 2 FASHION NOVEMBER 2017 Achieving ‘The Vision’ of $400 billion by 2030 is not going to be easy and is improbable with business-as-usual approach. To attain such growth target, industry is required to take some important measures. With fierce competition in the market, the requirement of low cost products has increased. Unfortunately, cheap labour is not the only requirement to achieve this goal. Cost advantage comes through superior product quality, innovative design, customisation, on-time delivery, technology innovations and finally admirable after sales service. All these factors culminate to customer satisfaction. The ability to deliver on these parameters is what constitutes manufacturing excellence. The key components of manufacturing excellence are as under:   Operational excellence: The constituents of operational excellence include streamlining manufacturing operations, quality and process improvement, capacity improvement, and information systems for operations and control. Thus, an ideal production process would be where throughput time is minimal, inventory is balanced, bottleneck operation is none, changeover time is negligible, defects are zero, and critical path is well defined.   Manpower: The shortage of talent calls for recruitment of right people and retaining the talent to achieve maximum benefit. Hence, it becomes important for the businesses to not only locate and recruit employees but also bring a change in the working environment as well for their successful retention.   Market intelligence: Since every market is different, it is important for companies to develop a strong understanding of each market and how their product will fit to improve their chances of success. Entering into market without proper understanding may lead to financial loss, wastage of time and management frustration. Moreover, exploring the markets helps in analysing global competition. Therefore, it is also important to consider an analysis of competitors.   Continual improvement: Creating and embracing continuous improvement of people, processes and product leads to achievement of excellence. Continuous improvement is all about leading by doing and empowering employees to make continuous improvement.