Method of Planning, Monitoring and Increasing Productivity in Cutting Room

Method of Planning, Monitoring and Increasing Productivity in Cutting Room

Amarnath Sharma
MBA, NIFT-Bangalore, India
Email: sharmaamarnath1973@gmail.com

Introduction:
Cutting department plays very important role in any apparel factory. Organized cutting department may increase productivity of sewing room by substantial percentage. However every apparel factory put plenty of efforts to improve productivity in sewing room but not concentrate much in cutting room. Low attention in cutting room results in low output, poor quality etc in sewing department.

Cutting is mainly ramified as following:

Productivity Improvement Techniques in Cutting Room:
Plenty of formula’s are there to measure productivity for example, productivity = output / input. Although there is no effective and practical way to measure productivity in cutting room but practically factory may plan and measure productivity in following way:

Step one:
List of work, which is in hand for cutting.

….Style        Quantity                Type of material

• Xyz      7000 garments         Chiffon
• Abc      9000 garments         Denim
• Cde      2500 garments         Poplin
• Fdc       7500 garments         Chambray
• Rtc       3000 garments          Chambray
• Ytc        4500 garments         Georgette
• Etc        5000 garments         Corduroy

Step two:
As per the production plan daily requirement of cutting for next one week for sewing.

….Style        Quantity              Type of material

• Xyz        1000 garments     Chiffon
• Cde        300 garments       Poplin
• Fdc         500 garments       Chambray
• Ytc          300 garments       Georgette

————————————————————–
Total             = 2100 garments.

Step three:
From industrial engineering department following data has been provided:

1. Spreading time of standard 100 plies.
2. Maximum number of plies of fabric to be cut in one layer.
3. Consumption per garment.
4. Number of garments marker plan.
5. Total cut time of one layer.
6. Parts to be cut by band knife.
7. Parts to be cut by dies.
8. Parts to be attached with fused interlining.
9. Stickering and bundling method and instruction.

For current planned style following data has been provided:

Step four:
Analysis and planning of cutting activity of current designs.

Style xyz analysis
Through above data it is easy to understand that if factory need to cut style ‘Xyz’ 1000 garments daily than 500 plies of fabric to be layered (2 garments marker). On the other hand according to engineering data only 100 plies could be layered in one stroke, that means five different groups of spreading of 100 plies each. Cutting table occupied for one layer = 2 meter consumption X 2 garments marker = 4 meters table + half meter extra. One layer of 100 plies, spreading time is 3 hours, marking time is ½ hour and cutting time is 45 minutes, that means 4.5 meter long table would be occupied for 4 hours and 15 minutes for cutting of one layer of 100 plies (200 garments). Means 4.5-meter long table may cut only 2 layers in 8-hour shift.

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Similarly 100 plies spreading time is 3 hours means 2 spreader may spread 2 groups of 100 plies spreading in one shift. Means total number of spreader required would be 4 for full day 2 for half day for total 1000 garments. Similarly, one layer marking time is half hour, then for entire 5 layers one marking man is required for 2.5 hours. On the other hand cutting time is 45 minutes for one layer, means cutting man would be required for, 45 minutes X 5 layers = 4 hours 5 minutes.

For 1000 garments:

Similarly for style ‘Cde’ 300 garments daily cutting, 1.75 meter average X 4 garments marker = 7 meter table required and for 300 garments only 75 plies of fabric to be spreaded. 100 plies time is 1-hour means for 75 plies total 45 minutes spreading, half hour marking and 25 minutes cutting time would be taken. Means 7.5 meters long table would be required for approximately 2 hours. Total, 2 spreader for 45 minutes, one marking man for half hour and one cutting man for 25 minutes would be required as per time study.

Style ‘Fdc’ 500 garments daily, 167 plies of fabric to be layered on 1.95 consumption X 3 garments marker = approximately 6 meter table. Two spreader for two hours, one marker for half hour and one cutter for 25 minutes, required according to time study.

Style ’Ytc’ 300 garments daily. 100 plies to be layered on 1.5 meter consumption X 3 garments marker = 4.5 meter long table + ½ meter extra. 3 hour spreading, half hour marking and 40 minutes cutting time required as per time study. Two spreader for 3 hours and one marker for half hour and one cutter for half hour required for execution of work.

For total 2100 garments:

From above statistics factory may evaluate, if infrastructure or manpower is less or extra compare to actual requirement as above. If it is less or extra then overtime may be put or manpower may be shifted to other departments, respectively.

Similarly, other activity may be planned and monitored such as band knife cutting, die cutting, fusing and numbering / ticketing of cut parts.

Band knife cutting:
Suppose style ‘xyz’ is having 3 parts and ‘Fdc’ is having 2 parts to be cut through band knife then as per plan  (1000 X 3) + (500 X 2) = 4000 parts would be cut through band knife.

Numbering / ticketing of cut parts:
Numbering of parts also would be planned as per number of parts in apparel multiplied by quantity daily required. For example style ‘xyz’ is having 21 parts, ‘Cde’ is having 16 parts, ‘Fdc’ is having 19 parts and ‘Ytc is having 29 cut parts, then total number of parts would be stickered (1000 X 21) + (300 X 16) + (500 X 19) + (300 X 29) = 44000 cut parts. As per basic time study, 70 parts may be numbered by one employee in one minute means for entire 44000 cut parts only two boys are enough for 8 hour shift.

Bundling as per sewing requirements:
Bundling also depends on styling and tech pack of the garments. Such as back yoke of shirt is always bundled along with back, for easy handling in sewing line and nearby cut parts. Collar two parts and collar stand two parts is always bundled together because of nearby parts and similar sewing specifications.

Conclusion:
Before planning of cutting, availability of material must be planned according to daily requirement. Number of garments to be cut of each design multiplied with consumption per garment = daily requirement of fabric of each design. This may be only an idea to plan and measure the cutting department work and accordingly crosscheck the outcome of plan. This idea is based on basic machinery, which is used by most of the factories. Factories, which are using CAD / CAM, auto spreader, auto cutter etc would plan as according to their improved machinery.

Along with plan a proper work-study is required to monitor for any loopholes and any method improvement required for achieving the target and goal. Through proper plan waiting time may be reduced hence optimum utilization of infrastructure and employee / manpower, may be achieved.

You may also like:

1. Module & Responsibility of Industrial Engineering Department for Apparel Production
2. How to Improve Productivity and Saving Cost in Sewing Department
3. Cutting and Sewing Quality in Readymade Garments
4. Functions of Quality Assurance Department in Garment Industry
5. Quality Control in Garment Manufacturing Process

Mazharul Islam Kiron

Founder & Editor of Textile Learner. He is a Textile Consultant, Blogger & Entrepreneur. Mr. Kiron is working as a textile consultant in several local and international companies. He is also a contributor of Wikipedia.

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