Lean Manufacturing for Improving Productivity at Sewing Section in Apparel Industry: An Empirical Study

摘要

The aim of this study was to investigate the manufacturing performance at sewing section through lean manufacturing principle in garment industry. The fundamental idea behind the concept of lean manufacturing consists to eliminate waste, which does not add value to the end product. Lean manufacturing is considered as one of the most influential activities that focus on cost reduction by eliminating non-value added activities. This paper addresses the relevance of lean manufacturing philosophy for the higher productivity in sewing section of the garments industry and pull out the frequent scenario of garments sector of Bangladesh by mentioning the existing pictures of sewing section. In this work, the existing layouts were studied and then lean manufacturing ideas are proposed to enhance the production system and some cellular manufacturing philosophies to find out the improved level of performance and productivity particularly in the garments section of that factory. All the operations related to different garments styles standard allowed minute or SAM were calculated. The resultant value of SMV for each style including and excluding non productive time were; Evelyn College – 6.20 and 5.23 min; Rodeo Long Sleeve – 7.53 and 6.43 min; Ramona MC01 - 7.05 and 5.87 min; Ramona MC03 - 6.95 and 5.74 min respectively. From this research work, various types of problems related to waste and various weaknesses of sewing section have been evaluated by using specific lean manufacturing tools as well as sewing performance has been measured in terms of effectiveness, time and quality. Waste related non productive activities and productivity are the two major issues in garments sector of Bangladesh. In this connection, this research was conducted. However, this research work proposes some recommendations for the future improvement of performance of the sewing section in garments industry.