Celebrating a decade of knowledge sharing, ICAHT 2014, an initiative of Okhla Garment and Textile Cluster (OGTC) saw many learned speakers from across the world take the mike on key issues under the umbrella theme of ‘Commitment to Excellence’. Over the years, OGTC has evolved as a collective initiative to build and sustain competitiveness and each year the conference brings together representatives of many Okhla based manufacturers and students to get an update on industry trends over two days of deliberations. The topics covered this year included diverse subjects from supply chain management, opportunities in the export and domestic market, human resource management to lean implementation.
Laying the foundation of what was in store for the conference, the first session chaired by Deepak Mohindra, Editor-in-Chief, Apparel Online (India & Bangladesh) and StitchWorld had experts speaking on ‘Strategy for Growth’ with emphasis on training, supply chain management and opportunities in the export market. Setting the ball rolling Deepak related an extended version of the famous rabbit and tortoise story, stressing that it is no longer just about the slow and steady winning the race, “rather it is now the fast, consistent and reliable who wins the race, or individuals and companies who work on their strengths can also win the race and finally those who are able to work in a team and harness each other’s strengths and abilities, win the race,” he said.
Agreeing that collaborative efforts have the best chance of success, R Dhamotharan, V-P & Head Buying & Merchandising at ITC, explained in detail how the supply chain has bigger challenges today.“Profits are derived from inventory turnovers and if an apparel manufacturer is able to maintain a consistent lead time of 120 days throughout the year, it can turnover its inventory thrice. This is the basic minimum as the lower the inventory turnaround time the higher the operating overheads, higher shipment delays and lower sales,” pointed out Dhamotharan, while deciphering how to manage the supply chain for profitability.
“Profits are derived from inventory turnovers and if an apparel manufacturer is able to maintain a consistent lead time of 120 days throughout the year, it can turnover its inventory thrice. This is the basic minimum as the lower the inventory turnaround time the higher the operating overheads, higher shipment delays and lower sales.” – R Dhamotharan
Representing one of the benchmark companies in India, Prasad Narayan Rege, Chief Operating Officer at Intimate Fashions (a unit of MAS Holdings), highlighted the various aspects of training processes from planning, execution to sustaining the training efforts. “The success of a company’s training process depends on the company identifying its Vision, Mission, Objective, Strategy and Tactics. With these aspects in place, the company can decide who requires training, what kind of training is required, whether talent from outside is required and other such critical aspects which define the success of training and development programs,” argued Prasad.
Though prodded by the chair to share new opportunities in the fast recovery global market, Anant Sadana, CEO, United Apparel, a veteran in sourcing, having controlled 1.2 billion worth of business at GAP, chose to talk about the factors that could make the apparel manufacturer a preferred supplier pointing out that the market was still uncertain. “It’s like dammed if I do, and doomed if I don’t,” he said. Defining KPIs like 100% on-time delivery, zero air shipments, 99% quality acceptance rate, besides other factors like design skills and flexibility as differentiators Anant only reiterated what buyers have been asking for since the turn of the century.
In another interesting session Perkinian Chellamani, Chief Executive Officer at Seeds Intimate Apparel India Pvt. Ltd. urged the apparel manufacturing industry to inculcate a culture of planning and scheduling within their organizations from the top management to the sewing operators, with each planned and aligned towards achieving the common organizational goal. Although endorsing planning, Perkinian also warned the industry about analyses paralyses. “Planning is good, but it is of no use if we are not taking actions on the plans made,” he asserted.
Sharing his experiences of working with the humungous Chinese apparel manufacturing industry, Venkatesh Nagan, CEO of Asmara International, a US $ 300 million company with sourcing operations in India, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Pakistan, highlighted that the so-called ‘wonderland’ China has actually grown on factors not necessarily related to manufacturing – with factories manufacturing millions of underwear for free to high-end down jackets being manufactured in Chinese prisons. “Despite all the question marks, China is no doubt a success story and would remain in the same position for the coming 5 years as other countries are not yet ready to accommodate the business coming out of China. India with the advantages of creativity, quality, literacy, ability to do small quantities along with the volume business and compliance can easily accommodate majority of the apparel business coming out of China,” he averred. Having said that Venkatesh also urged the apparel industry to push for incentives from the Government, engage more foreign consultants and experts from countries like Korea and China in their apparel manufacturing facilities and also built capabilities for manufacturing synthetic fabrics for tapping the outerwear apparel business moving out of China.
Sharing his experience of manufacturing in Bahrain, Nitesh Burman, GM – Production, MRS Fashions W.L.L., presented a case study of his factory, talking about the journey of productivity improvement. “Whenever you are faced with the challenge of increasing productivity per person in a sewing line of 10 people making 100 garments, there are two options – to increase the line output from 100 to 120 pieces or reduce the people from 10 to 8,” started off Nitesh. For achieving the same, the company has extensively focused on reducing style changeover by classifying lines as per the product specialisation, as due to the volumes handled by the company; the loss of production is too much. “We keep no buffers in the TnA plan made for sourcing and production, instead we have defined KPIs in terms of finishing the job assigned before the planned dates,” shared Nitesh. He boasted of completing the sewing deadlines 7 days before the planned dates, and similarly completing deliverables from the finishing department 3 days before the planned dates. Also a part of the same session, Gil Almog, V-P Products and Technology, Optitex illustrated the benefits that can be registered with the use of smart cut order planning and 3D simulation technologies from Optitex.
“Whenever you are faced with the challenge of increasing productivity per person in a sewing line of 10 people making 100 garments, there are two options – to increases the line output from 100 to 120 pieces or reduce the people from 10 to 8.”– Nitesh Burman
The 2nd day at the OGTC conference was highlighted by presentation from J.D. Giri, Director Shahi Exports and Rajat Sikka, Director, Saivana Exports, in a session chaired by Rajesh Bheda, CEO, Rajesh Bheda Consultants. Giri detailed the success they have achieved with the PACE (Personal Advancement and Career Enhancement) programs for female operators with GAP. “After doing the PACE program for three years we conducted a survey to study the effect of the program, we found the attendance of PACE workers compared to non-PACE program workers improve by 3%, the attrition rate was higher by 42% in non-PACE workers, the efficiency of PACE workers was 6% higher than non-PACE workers and the productivity increased by 11% per operator for the workers who were part of the PACE program,” shared Giri, and further pointed out that the PACE program from GAP is just aimed at improving the socio-economic situation of female workers and such improvements were a bonus, as they are not a part of the agenda.
“The success of a company’s training process depends on the company identifying its Vision, Mission, Objective, Strategy and Tactics. With these aspects in place, the company can plan its training program.” – Prasad Narayan Rege
On the same lines, Rajat presented a case study on the winning culture matrix system for employee engagement, which he implemented in his factory successfully. Now the incentive system used at his factory is not dependent on the work done by an employee, rather it comprises of a complex matrix of aspects like relationship with colleagues, clarity in the job objectives, sense of responsibility, discipline, ability to work in a team, the kind of trust people have in you and quality of the work. The highest level of incentives given by the company is stock options, i.e. ownership in a company. “We gave stock options in our company to a sampling tailor, who was consistently rated in the top category and has been with us for 15 years,” shared Rajat and stated that people have been motivated to take up challenges and broaden their job profiles.
“We found the attrition rate was higher by 42% in non-PACE workers, the efficiency of PACE workers was 6% higher than non-PACE workers and the productivity increased by 11% per operator for the workers who were part of the PACE program.”– J.D. Giri
The OGTC conference also had workshops on production, merchandising, human resource management and corporate social responsibility. The workshops highlighted the lean journey of Pee Empro Exports and Orient Fashions, and also the exceptional journey towards achieving production excellence by couture designer and manufacturer Hemant Sagar, Owner of Hemant Lecoanet India. Of similar interest was the workshop conducted by Pooja Makhija, Consultant, Fashion Futures, wherein she discussed tools for streamlining communication and TnA calendar management in the merchandising departments. The session on CSR was keenly attended as the industry was interested to know about new regulations regarding CSR; however, clarity on the 2% ruling was amiss and Purti Marwaha of Jhalani & Co. admitted that even they as legal advisors were not yet clear on how the rule was to be implemented and monitored.
