Lead Time Reduction In PreProduction Processes

Mid Term Evaluation

PRESENTED BY:
Aman Anshu
D/BFT-AP/09/03

B.F.Tech(AP)

INTRODUCTION
Evolving consumer preferences whose awareness levels of trends, fashion
consciousness, disposable income and consumerism generally interested in FAST
FASHION concept. This is inducing product lifecycles to shrink dramatically,
driving the needs of even more new products.
Merchandisers are the key for the success of any garment retail business. They strive
for ensuring the right products at the right time, enabling a company to match with
latest market trends and meet the market demand.

Their goal is not only to deliver the product at low cost but most importantly in
shorter time which can be achieved by ensuring proper coordination among
different activities.

 In todays scenario- lean is the buzz word making the delivery quick and on time
is the main objective of any retailer and manufacturer, reducing the delay elements
which are normally non value added elements and making the entire supply chain

more efficient and agile.

Hence, entire pre production, production and post production activities need to be
managed properly. This also leads to getting more order, more profit and good
name and reputation in this competitive scenario.

Pre Production delays are the extension of the days beyond standard and
planned schedule for the activities starting from order enquiry to all approvals
required for bulk production. These delays increases the lead-time even more than
the standard one and hence to survive in the global competitiveness is much
more difficult for the manufacturers.

Need For The Study:

Merchandising is the backbone of any apparel manufacturing/exporting/buying

company, so the efficiency and effectiveness of merchandising process is

inevitable for the timely delivery of goods.

Execution of pre-production activities as per the merchandising plan always

gives an edge for the company in current cut throat competition and any delay
in these processes hugely affects the lead time.

Delay in any of pre-production activities adversely affecting the further

processes as they take up 60-70% of total lead-time.

Shrinkage in product life cycles demanding shorter lead times.

Scope of the Project:

Orders, executed in the period of Feb13-Apr13, were selected for study.

Helps us to get a view of process flow of product at pre-production.

Establish framework of set of activities required for excluding the delay element.

Beneficial for company to execute order with smaller runs and frequent varying
style.

The study will help the organization to reduce the delay in merchandising
process by identifying and rectifying some of the causes of delay.

OBJECTIVES
Primary Objectives:
1. To find out the reasons for delays at pre-production stage.
2. To identify the gap areas and propose a solution for the same.

Secondary Objectives:
1. To analyze merchandising process at a Buying house.
2. Understanding the work culture of different departments, occurrence of
delays and their magnitude.
3. Providing probable solutions to the delays
4. To understand cost implication of delays

Project Brief
The study was undertaken principally to analyze the pre-production

processes and to understand the internal weakness and flaws of the

company there by finding out the internal problems of the organization.
Further, focusing into the major reasons for the problems and coming up
with some practical suggestions to overcome the problem to an extent.

The project is carried out at a buying house based in Gurgaon which deals
with buyers from all over the globe. To name a few: ESPRIT, BONITA,
NEXT, MEXX and many more.

 They have a central planning and control cell which is responsible for planning and
making time and action calendars for all the orders they receive. Further, it is
forwarded to merchandisers for the order execution as per the planned dates.

It is observed that there is a lot of variation in the planned and actual T&As in the
pre-production activities.

The project is aimed at trying to identify the reasons for these delays and analyze
them. This study is an effort to reduce the delay in pre-production activity as it is
crucial, because the pre-production delays can affect the further production process.

If the company can find out the major reasons for the delays and try to get some practical solution
for it, then it will be helpful for the smooth running of the whole merchandising process and goods
can be delivered as per the planned date. In order to find a way out from this problem this study

has been done.

As an initial step, the study gives more focus on the thorough study on merchandising process and
T&A of various orders. Then the study moves towards analyzing and finding out the reasons and
causes for the problem and aims at coming up with acceptable practical solutions and suggestions.

The collected data will be classified and tabulated. Simple tables will be prepared and liberally used
to exhibit the classified data to provide easy and better understanding of the study. This study will
provide significant inputs to the industry peoples as well as academicians towards unleashing the
lead time of the Indian garment industry and enable the industry to realize its rightful place in the
global economic space. The goal of the apparel industry is not delivering within the original cost
and expected time estimates but the impetus is now on shrinking the existing lead times in order to
compete with the international supply chain standards

TIME AND ACTION CALENDER AND DELAY

ANALYSIS
Time and action calendar is prepared by the central planning and controlling department.
The T&A calendar acts or guides the merchandiser to plan his schedules and work as per the date
given for each and every activity in the T&A. T&A is prepared for each and every order. When an
order is received by merchandiser from the buyer then he will forward a copy of tech pack to the
planning cell. In turn the planning cell will prepare the T&A by practically thinking on all the
internal and external problems and delays which may occur during the execution of that
particular order.
Here analysis is done with the help of 4 orders and the focus is given on that activity where more
deviation has happened.

Time and Action calendar

Order 1

Order 2

Order 3

Order 4

P*

A*

P*

A*

P*

A*

P*

A*

Lab Dip Approval (sent to buyer)

02-Dec

05-Dec

02-Dec

03-Dec

02-Dec

02-Dec

02-Dec

02-Dec

Yarn in- house

12-Dec

16-Dec

12-Dec

10-Dec

12-Dec

13-Dec

12-Dec

14-Dec

Griege fabric in house date

02-Dec

02-Dec

02-Dec

02-Dec

Finish Fabric in-house

12-Dec

12-Dec

12-Dec

12-Dec

Bulk fabric approval (sent to buyer)

22-Dec

22-Dec

22-Dec

22-Dec

KEY ACTIVITIES

Bulk fabric approval (receive from buyer)

Further Fabric Processesing
Print/Embroidery strike off(sent to buyer)

NA

NA

03-Dec

03-Dec

03-Dec

03-Dec

NA

NA

Print/Embroidery strike off comments (received

from buyer)

NA

NA

06-Dec

07-Dec

06-Dec

05-Dec

NA

NA

Fit Sample Approval (sent to buyer)

10-Dec

18-Dec

10-Dec

14-Dec

10-Dec

13-Dec

10-Dec

14-Dec

Fit sample approval comments(received from

buyer)

17-Dec

25-Dec

17-Dec

20-Dec

17-Dec

22-Dec

17-Dec

24-Dec

PP Sample submission

28-Dec

07-Jan

28-Dec

31-Dec

28-Dec

3-0-12

28-Dec

05-Jan

PP Sample approval to receive

04-Jan

15-Jan

04-Jan

07-Jan

04-Jan

08-Jan

04-Jan

13-Jan

Size Set sample approval (sent to buyer)

07-Jan

25-Jan

07-Jan

11-Jan

07-Jan

11-Jan

07-Jan

16-Jan

Size set sample approval (receive from buyer)

10-Jan

30-Jan

10-Jan

15-Jan

10-Jan

15-Jan

10-Jan

20-Jan

Stitching accessories in-house

12-Jan

15-Jan

12-Jan

12-Jan

12-Jan

12-Jan

12-Jan

12-Jan

Packing accessories in-house

08-Jan

16-Jan

08-Jan

08-Jan

08-Jan

10-Jan

08-Jan

09-Jan

Cutting start date

11-Jan

01-Feb

11-Jan

16-Jan

11-Jan

16-Jan

11-Jan

21-Jan

Washing start date

15-Jan

05-Feb

15-Jan

21-Jan

15-Jan

22-Jan

15-Jan

25-Jan

Bit print start date

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

Bit embroidery start date

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

NA

Stitching start date

17-Jan

08-Feb

17-Jan

24-Jan

17-Jan

22-Jan

17-Jan

27-Jan

03-Feb

22-Feb

03-Feb

09-Feb

03-Feb

07-Feb

03-Feb

08-Feb

Bit print end date

15-Jan

20-Jan NA

NA

Bit embroidery end date

15-Jan

20-Jan NA

NA

Garment wash start date

Washing end date

Stitching end date

07-Feb

28-Feb

07-Feb

14-Feb

07-Feb

14-Feb

07-Feb

18-Feb

Final inspection

11-Feb

01-Mar

11-Feb

15-Feb

11-Feb

15-Feb

11-Feb

20-Feb

Ex-Factory

14-Feb

03-Mar

14-Feb

17-Feb

14-Feb

17-Feb

14-Feb

22-Feb

Delivery Date

28-Feb

10-Mar

28-Feb

01-Mar

28-Feb

01-Mar

28-Feb

03-Mar

Garment wash end date

Pre-production activities and

average Delays

Production Activities and Average

Delays

Fit Sample(6 Days)

Cutting Start Date (10 days)

PP Sample (7 Days)

Stitching Start Date (11 Days)

Size Set Sample (10 Days)

Stitching End Date (9 Days)

Ex- Factory Date (8 Days)

It is noticed that although more average delay has happened in production

activities, the pre- production activities i.e., sampling delay had played the
major role in it.
So the delays can be controlled to a great extent if company focuses more on
the reasons of pre-production delays with suitable preventive measures.

METHODOLOGY

Step 1: Define the Research problem:

A study on causes for delays in Pre-Production- Merchandising activities of
garment manufacturing/buying house.

Step 2: Develop the research plan

Designing a research plan calls for decisions on data sources, choice of research design,
research approaches, research instruments, sampling plan and contact methods.

Data Sources:
- Both secondary as well as primary data have been used.
- Secondary data was collected from literature provided to us by the company.
- Internet, magazines
- The primary data consists of survey of various people involved in related activities, by
asking them to fill up questionnaire and Queries from company employees to understand
the process better.

Research Design:
A research design specifies the methods and procedures for constructing a particular study.

In this research, the design is Descriptive research. The Descriptive research focuses on
the factors, which help to understand the various causes for delays in related activities.

Contact methods:
Once the research plan has been determined, it must be decided how the Subject should be
contacted.
-Past records available at different departments was used.

-Also personal enquiries were also used.

 Step III: Information Collection

Information has been collected from the various people involved in production over a
period of time. It was in the form of filling up of the questionnaire.
Apart from filling up of the questionnaire information was also collected as regard to
MOF release dates, Process capacities, selection of vendors, Desired quality levels etc.

Research Tools:
In this research, Questionnaires and Informal enquiries have been used to fill out so as

to help in understanding the reasons and coming to conclusions.

Step IV: Analysis of information

The data that is being collected will be segregated manually and the analysis work will be
done using simple tools such as standard deviations and measures of central tendency. It is
planned to collect data of approximately 30 orders from Feb 13- April 13.

The orders which got delayed in Pre-production stage will be analyzed on the basis of the
following parameters:
Sample submissions
Material procurement
Quality problems

Lab dips
On the basis of Enquiries, the data will be tabulated, charts will be developed and findings
will be extracted from the research.

Limitations of the Project

In-depth interviews with the department in charges /merchandisers was not possible on
several occasions as they did not have much time to devote.

The planned data collection will only be of Feb13- April13 suggestions and
recommendations are applicable only for the buyers being catered to during this interval.

The project was conducted for a company situated in Gurgaon, operating in export and
foreign market. The study may not show the complete picture of apparel industry; rather it
will be confined to a few industries only.

Pre-production process networks are unique for every single vendor/buyer, and even
sometimes for every single order.

 Thank You!!