Control Shop Floor Production in

Garment Industry

Compiled by :
Esubalew Gebrie
March 14/2012 E.C
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
 Controlling the shop floor
 Controlling the shop floor means getting daily production as per
plan, producing the desired quality of garments, and production
cost and other factors are under control.
 Other production factors are like reduced line setting time, no
excess lost time, and no excess overtime etc.
 Utilization of resources and line performances can be improved
when you have better control of your sewing lines.
 Normally, line supervisors are responsible to control the sewing
lines. But when it comes to data analysis and data-based decision
making, they are not trained on that part. So, industrial engineers
(IE) intervention is necessary.
 To achieve objectives you need to do multiple jobs. Some of the
major tasks you must do daily basis are discussed below to control
the sewing lines (sewing floor), 9 things to do to control shop floor
 1. Check operator attendance report
 Why? You can’t keep an eye to every operator if they are
starting their machine at the right time in the morning.
 If operators come late, all minutes will be lost until operators
start the machine and start sewing.
 In case someone is absent, you need to find an alternative for
that absentee.
 2. Prepare hourly production report of all operators
 Most factories display hourly line output report in a
whiteboard.
 That is not enough to control the sewing line. You need to
know operation wise hourly production.
 In case individual production tracking is not possible, collect
production data for each section of a line.
 Technology is available to perform this task automatically.
 3. Analyse lost time 

 Major reasons of efficiency loss of a line is lost hours

due to lost time and idle time.
 To reduce lost time you need to measure those.
 4. Work in line balancing
 If you track hourly report for all operations in a line, it will be
easy to understand work volume throughout the line.
 Make a line chart or bar graph. On the graph, you can clearly
see if your line is balanced or not.
 5. Check availability of WIP
 All operators must have enough work (WIP).
 You have to follow WIP level at line level and operation level.
 Plan for future (next days) loading. If you know loading plan (style) you
plan for other things.
 6. Prepare work schedule
 Though work scheduling is not a common task of an IE, you
must have schedule about what all style to be loaded in the
line in advance.
 You should thoroughly study the new style and analysis
requirement.
 7. Measure line efficiency and labour productivity

 To know your performance measure line efficiency

 daily.
 If possible measure efficiency of the individual
operators.
 By analyzing individual operator performance
(efficiency %) you can find low performers.
 Compare daily efficiency with the target efficiency.
 Then plan accordingly to improve line efficiency.
 Measure labour productivity: Another measure of a
line performance is labour productivity.
 8. Motivate employee
 By measuring operator performance, you will get to know
who are good performers in the floor.
 Praise for their good work.
 Prepare a list of monthly top performers and announce their
name in front of the management.
 Other way to motivate shop floor employees is to provide
them performance incentives.
 9. Measure labour cost per pieces
 There is a target labour cost per garment for each style.
 This cost is the amount taken in garment costing sheet for direct labour
cost.
 Your aim should be to beat that target cost and bring down per piece cost.
 That is why you need to calculate it daily and compare it with the target.
 Practice above things and surely you can control the line output,
production cost and line performance.
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