Following the implementation of Coats Digital’s GSDCost, leading T-shirt and lingerie manufacturer American Phil Textiles Limited has experienced 5 per cent efficiency across its factories as a result of more accurate and transparent costing and capacity forecasting.
The development has recently been announced by Coats Digital.
By establishing international standard time benchmarks based on accurate Standard Minute Values (SMVs), American Phil has also benefitted from an increase in orders and revenue; improved OTDP; and a more motivated workforce due to its ability to set achievable performance targets across the business.
Previously, due to the lack of a robust, scientifically-based method-time-cost standard to create accurate cost and capacity forecasts, American Phil was faced with significant uncertainty surrounding its capacity and cost controls, and was consistently unable to respond effectively to incoming product inquiries.
With its cost and capacity forecasts based on inaccurate historical working hours data stored across a myriad of IT sources, the company suffered unreliable efficiency targets, high defect rates, late deliveries, unnecessary freight costs and unplanned overtime costs.
Without an open and transparent capacity platform providing the visibility it needed to create factually stable manufacturing costs or properly assessed production workloads, the management team also found it often had to pay emergency costs to fulfil orders on time.
Hilary Yue, Production Manager, MeiFei Group/American Phil Textiles Limited, who emphasises on enterprises’ reliance on scientific management, commented, “Without scientifically-based standard working hours, we are faced with factors such as inaccurate cost controls, unknown efficiencies and uncertain capacity management,” adding, “We chose Coats Digital as our partner because the GSDCost solution is the internationally recognised global standard for time and cost within the garment industry, and I firmly believe that Coats Digital’s knowledge and experience along with its proven technologies, will provide the foundation for our future cost reduction and productivity improvement roadmap.”
With the implementation of GSDCost, American Phil was able to establish international standard time benchmarks based on standard motion codes and predetermined times. This enabled the sales, costing, planning and manufacturing teams to communicate efficiently using the same language, based on a scientific method for correctly analysing manufacturing costs.
With the GSDCost solution onboard, the business, planning and production departments were able to make informed business and costing decisions based on accurate capacity forecasts, which also afforded them significant time gains to focus on other areas of the business.
With a higher quality input of costs and a better production plan, American Phil was able to realise an overall productivity increase of 5 per cent, reducing its core SMVs from 100 to 95. This not only meant that the company could negotiate fair product prices with customers confidently, but also enabled the company to take on increased order requests with ease.
Carrie Lai, Head of GSDCost Project, MeiFei Group/American Phil Textiles Limited, commented, “Time studies based on historical calculations of standard working hours are time-consuming and inaccurate. Through rigorous training from Coats Digital’s GSDCost team and the consistent effort of our internal team, we have gradually established our own robust standard working hours database.”
Boris Lu, Customer Success Manager, Coats Digital, mentioned, “We are delighted to be working closely with American Phil to establish a robust standard working hours database that fully aligns with its ambitious strategy to develop smart and lean production processes, based on scientific and best-of-breed technologies, that will help take it successfully into the future.”
It’s worth noting here that American Phil was founded in 1978 as a specialist lingerie manufacturer, exporting primarily to the US and European markets. The company is now a global business, headquartered in Dongguan, China, with factories in mainland China, Thailand and Vietnam. The company produces over two million garments per month, exports to the US, Canada, Europe, South East Asia, Japan, Korea and Australia and boasts of an annual turnover of US $ 100 million.
