Why Need Industrial Engineering (IE) for Apparel Manufacturing Industries

INTRODUCTION

Due to the increasing labor wage in developed countries, the apparel manufacturing has been migrating from the high wage developed world to low wage developing countries (Bheda, Narag and Singla, 2003). Even though the labor cost is cheaper than in developed countries; due to the specific market nature of the garment industries for example: the short production life cycle, high volatility, low predictability, high level of impulse purchase, the quick market response; garment industries are facing the greatest challenges these days (Lucy Daly and Towers, 2004).

Garment industries in developing countries are more focused on sourcing of raw material and minimizing delivery cost than labor productivity because of the availability of cheap labor. Due to this, labor productivity is lower in developing countries than in the developed ones. For example, labour is very cheap in Bangladesh but the productivity is poor among other developing countries (Shahidul and Syed Shazali, 2011). Similarly, the cost of fabric is a major part of the garment so there seems to be great need for improvement in this sector. Even in developing countries the CAD and CAM system for fabric cutting has been implemented to save fabric. Now the worry is about labor productivity and making production flexible; because the fashion industry is highly volatile and if the orders are not fulfilled on time, the fear for losing business is real.

Even today, industries are getting the same or more volumes (orders), but the number of styles they have to handle has increased drastically. Earlier industries were getting bulk order so there is no need to worry; if the production line was set for the first time it would run for a month or at least a week or two. But nowadays due to small order quantities and complex designs, the garment industry has to produce multiple styles even within a day; this needs higher flexibility in volume and style change over (Shahram and Cristian, 2011).

In some cases it has been observed that, in developing countries the garment industries are run as family business lacking skilled personnel as well as capital to implement new technologies for improving productivity and flexibility. Because of this, industries have been running in a traditional way for years and are rigid to change. They are happy as long as they are sustaining their business. They don’t have much confidence and will towards innovation over old processes. Now the time has come to struggle with global market demand and niche market in garment industries if they want to run it further(Gao, Norton, Zhang and Kin-man To, 2009).

This volatility of styles can be addressed only by flexibility in manufacturing. The best way to cope with all these challenges is the implementation of lean manufacturing. This will serve our purpose of flexibility and save a lot of money by reducing production lead time, reducing the inventory, increasing productivity, training operators for multiple works, and by reducing rework.

What is Industrial Engineering ( IE )

IE is a system which is improved production & productivity make peaceful working environment through systematic & scientific management technique .

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