Knitwear standardization to stop "air shipment"
by
Khawaja Humayun Qamar

Air shipments are a major threat to the future of knitwear industry. Organizations have been paying millions in air freighting the goods yet most of them are unable to control air shipments. Its time to get after this problem think as a nation and find a solution to this before its lost.
To solve the problem of "air shipments" we need to first find out its causes, which mainly are Delay in procurement of accessories/raw material, Delay in production and lack of coordination.
Let us call these three "mega problems", Each has its own causes, If we get rid of the causes, most of our garment export problems would be solved.
Let us start with first mega problem of delay in procurement of accessories.
Accessories are normally delayed due to delayed order placement and/or payment, poor purchaser follow up, unclear/delayed/wrong information from buyer and inability of merchandisers to assure provision of information on time. Accessories may also be delayed indirectly due to miscalculations of PPC , store or purchase.
Solution is implementation of a " Standard Information & responsibility system ", in which merchandiser acts as the only communication channel with buyer , apart from his normal duties he must understand package and forward standard info to PPC on standard formats. (a standard information means Checklist, approved garment, patterns, package and any other info needed ).
In some companies merchandisers just e mail the initial info received from buyer to PPC without even reading it. and they expect PPC to liaison directly with buyer. This may be termed as " Buying house merchandising " .This practice leads to multiple communication channel that in turn leads to confusion.
Once PPC gets all the data it must make standard accessories plan. forward it to purchase and generate "Weekly pending info memo". In case of non-provision of information by relevant department, matter should be taken with the CEO.
Make sure your PPC is following standard material calculation technique, totally mathematical and without any rough estimates. eg calculation of stitching thread is based on a certain method. If your store is full of excessive material, just check the methods of PPC.
Knitwear should employ "post shipment analytical technique" which focuses on monitoring graphically cutting, stitching and finishing waste. It also shows trends of departmental or organizational performance.
Purchaser must place orders within three days (delivery date may be given close to required date) and must take approval from merchandising for all accessories before bulk production, merchandiser must assure approval preferably from buyer.
In some companies task of approval of accessories has been left on PPC with an argument that all info is already forwarded to PPC. I don't agree involving PPC results in absence of buyer from approval and leaves merchandiser unchecked as he might have received some revisions which PPC or he himself had missed. Store must assure quick approval and counting, in case of shortfalls immediate info be forwarded to all. Is your store doing it ? is your store giving a daily store status and how accurate is it ? .
Now we come to our second mega problem i.e. air shipments due to delay in production.
Production delays normally result due to unexpected shortfalls - (poor quality, rejections and errors etc), delayed approvals from buyer, unexpected machine break down and over booking etc.
To reduce fabric shortfalls there has to be pre-production R&D and predefined waste standards for all buyers. PPC must plan accordingly and very accurately. Involvement of fabric division in R&D is essential. First lot result must be closely monitored.
Do you have an R&D department? How many shortfalls due to width, GSM variations or any other reason you are getting ?
If you are unable to answer the above question you need to implement a " shortfall management system '. More surprisingly you only need a trainee and a PC to start this system you will get your answers .
Poor quality also results in shipment delays I shall leave it to quality specialist to start thinking of finding practical ways of improving quality.
Our last mega problem is "Lack of follow up and coordination ".
This mainly occurs when in an organization a central monitoring and control system is missing, every department works under separate divisional heads or are on their own.
Don't mind it but this problem mainly occurs due to improper involvement of owners.
If you need to coordinate all departments you need to make them sit together, if you need to smoothly run the coming orders you need to focus on the coming orders before they become current orders.
We are trying to talk about simple solutions, just organize a " daily production meeting " with all the targets and deviations in front of you, discuss all orders (current and expected ) not only their fabrication but accessories as well, make sure you have meeting minutes.
If you are already organizing a daily meeting but are unable to improve coordination, something is wrong in your approach. This meeting would only be helpful under a specific FCC system - follow up, coordination and control system.
Conclusion
For avoiding air shipments you must have a very good material, time and shortfall management system, you must establish FCC headed by CEO.
Post shipment analysis would in detail explain to you what and how much departments are wasting in comparison to their targets.
Proper R&D and industrial standards need to be developed especially in plan structure, calculation methodology, departmental responsibilities and wastage.
To be successful scheduling of such a level is needed that every person/ department knows when and what he has to do, there must a system of follow up to assure that one completes his task on time.
Government must assure proper curriculum for textile education, keeping in view that we are a manufacturing country, subjects as merchandising, PPC, stitching and quality must be taught in textile education. Educated and motivated employees are also the main key to success.
Various systems discussed above need to be further elaborated but for that a broader medium is needed to explain further details .

International Production Cost Comparison

The International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) has released the 2003 edition of its biennial International Production Cost Comparison - the only consolidated source for benchmarking the yarn and fabric production costs prevailing in 7 of the world's most important textile manufacturing countries. This year, China has been brought into the country set, reflecting the increasing importance of its textile industry in the global picture.

The report is designed to highlight the implications of the ever-increasing capital intensity of the primary textile industry, by tracing the impact of cost factors borne by manufacturers and presenting them on a standardised basis. This allows the reader to readily compare elements of total manufacturing costs across representative production facilities located in Brazil, China, India, Italy, Korea, Turkey and the USA.
The presentation of manufacturing and total yarn & fabric costs incorporates a detailed breakdown into the various cost components per kilogram of yarn and per yard of fabric, showing their relative importance and influence in the countries under review.

The International Production Cost Comparison incorporates a wide range of influences on the cost picture, from externally-determined factors like raw material and machinery prices through to the local prices of labour, capital, and many other inputs to production.

The textile industry sectors analysed are Spinning, Texturing, Weaving and Knitting, and individual results are supplied for ring-spun, OE and textured yarns, and for fabrics woven and knitted from each of these yarn types.

Manufacturing costs covered in the report are based on parameters specified by the textile machinery companies Rieter, Barmag, Sulzer and Terrot, and thus the representative cost structure for each country is derived from both "bottom-up" (investment analysis) and "top-down" (surveyed) standpoints. While not attempting to exhaustively explain the final sales price of yarns and fabrics, the International Production Cost Comparison nonetheless provides a unique basis for considering variations in international costs on a technically robust, yet accessible, foundation.

All cost factors are surveyed in local currencies, and reported in US dollar terms. Manufacturing and Total Production Costs are tabulated side-by-side and indexed against the cost levels of Italy, while cost structures are illustrated in a graphical breakdown for each primary textile product.

The 2003 edition of the International Production Cost Comparison has been published on CD-Rom (Adobe Acrobat format), allowing greater ease of navigation within the report as well as supporting the introduction of full-colour graphics.

The price of the survey in CD. Rom is SFs 250. Postage is extra for Europe SFs 10 and for other countries SFs 20.