PRODUCTION BALANCING

Greeting friends!

I am digressing a bit from Modapts to a very critical topic "Production Balancing".

Production Balancing is a major issue in the Apparel Manufacturing Industry. The Production manager and supervisor can face many problems like production targets not being met, operator sitting idle, piling up of work in progress and no work in progress.

Every operator has different ability to perform. Not everyone can perform in similar manner and not all operation is similar to each other. The machine might be different; the methodology to do the task may be different. It’s just analogous to Water tank.

Each tank has its own inlet and outlet valves. The rate of flow of water from each valve may be different. So we have to ensure that input is equal to output on all operations and work sections and all operations and operators have the opportunity to work to their maximum potential. Each operation has a different S.A.M and S.M.V. Many operators work inconsistently and intermittent entourage with machines breakdown or quality problem, absence etc.

The question arises that what should be made accountable for determining the potential performance of the Operator for that particular operation and to find out that how compatible the operator is with machines like SNLS, DNLS, Overlock, Flat Lock etc.

Potential Performance

The line is set for particular style. The operator is assigned accordingly by supervisor based on his intuition and experience. One can easily see the paramount inconsistency in doing that particular task after all they are human. The I.E will take random 5 or more observation for each operator doing particular operation, depending upon the pre-requisite of accuracy level. Then Average Cycle time will be determined. Make sure that the reading should be without adding any such allowances. The OB S.A.M is predetermined time done by IE before the start of the production. It is determined through various method study like General Sewing Data (G.S.D), MODAPTS© etc. The Personal Fatigue Delay (PFD) Allowances is added depending upon the company policy. In general 15% is taken as PFD allowances. So Basic Time = SMV – PFDs Allowances(also subtract any other allowances like Bundling allowance if required)

Potential Performance = (Basic Time/Average cycle time)*100

Let’s take a real situation which I came through in production floor of the B.L International. I was doing 

Time study on the style name: Resta leo sl top. An operator doing the critical operation like Zipper attaches.

SMV for Zipper Attach	= 0.8 minutes
PFD allowance	= 15%
Basic Time( Company policy for allowances is 15%)	= SMV- Allowances
Basic time	=0.8 – 0.8*15% =0.68 minutes
Average Cycle time by Direct Time Study: Here I randomly took 5 observations. No need to add any allowances	=1.60 minutes
Potential Performance	= (Basic Time/Average cycle Time)*100
Potential Performance	= (0.68/1.60)*100 =42.5%

This shows that attaching zipper is difficult task for this operator.

Ideally at 100% output per hour an operator should produce= 60/0.8 = 75 pieces

But with 42.5% he will be able to produce= 75*42.5% = 33 pieces per hour

Point to be noted: 
Never ever rely on the past historical information because if you do that then you are creating more quandary situation. The style is different so the circumstance will be different lead to the entirely different ramification at certain. The situation would be diddly-squat just as unbeknownst to you.  So Production manager or supervisor should check the status quo of the operator performance and then come to decision about the performance level to be used.

The cycle time and potential performance is absolutely peremptory in effective line balancing and setting up of modular manufacturing teams. Supervisor works on their intuition and experience. He knows about the dexterity of the operator. What if operator changes section or supervisor change section or he leaves the Line? People do forget things and one should not rely upon the operator to tell you what he/she can do. Absenteeism is also major problem and supervisor should prepare for all contingencies. A set of potential performance build a chart called as “SKILLs MATRIX”.  A skill matrix gives a basic picture about the particular operators doing particular job. By looking at the chart supervisor can see the number of operators that can do an operation and also find out the floaters (hyper specialty operator). The skill Matrix should be kept up to date as the performance may change in future.