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| Fabric cutting section |
In this article, I will discuss the common things that you can do to reduce manpower in your factory. This article is written to answer the following question.
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The steps to take for reducing manpower are explained here.
1. Improve workers skill by training
2. Measure the work and calculate manpower requirement accordingly
3. Develop multitasking workers/employees as much as possible
4. Install or increase the number of automatic/semi-automatic machines and equipment
Remember one thing – don’t fire employees/workers for cost cutting. Instead involve unutilized worker in other activities (in other departments) or improve factory capacity to utilize all manpower resources.
In past I visited some of the garment factories in Bangladesh, I show there many unnecessary helpers are allocated in cutting section and stitching lines. The activities done by these helpers includes – helping in spreading fabric in cutting room, trimming threads after stitching, arranging stitched parts, cutting chain of parts at overlock machines.
These are unnecessary manpower that can be easily reduced by improving method and practice.
Reduction of manpower in stitching section:
Use of UBT machine: Thread trimming from each lock stitch operations can be done by using auto thread trimmer (UBT machine).
Handling stitching parts: You can place one trolley or basket parts in the front of the machine for disposing stitched garments or garment. Why operators need someone to stand there and pick each stitched piece and bundle it? If operation needs bundling, same operator should do that job.
Cutting stitching chains: I would say it is really a luxury in work by allocating extra manpower (helper) at overlock machine those are overlocking small components and stitched parts are coming out from the machine in chain from.
What do you think? Are these helpers are really needed for improving production?
In sewing floor other kind of manpower like data recording person can be reduced.
Reduction of manpower in cutting section:
In cutting section, I have seen helpers to stand both sides of the cutting table and they align fabric edges on the lay (see the above image). They help in spreading the plies.
Solution: You can train cutting room workers how to spread layer with two persons (max 4 persons).
Secondly, you can use automatic or semi-automatic fabric spreading machine (for fabric rolls). Yes installation of such machine needs some investment. I would say automatic spreading machine are cost effective if you have high production volume. Additionally you can also improve cutting room production by installing automatic cutting machine.
Reduction of manpower in quality team:
Do you believe that by checking garments you can improve stitching quality of your products? No. That is not possible. Garment quality (stitch quality) is made at sewing needle and made by sewing operator. Checkers just segregate good and defective garments. By improving quality awareness among sewing operators and other workers in the floor; and providing training to checkers and quality team, you can improve effectiveness in quality checking. This way you may reduce need of checkers to some extent.
These are some of ideas that can be followed to reduce extra manpower in a garment factory. What do you think about these ideas?
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