Lean manufacturing has been a much talked about concept in the garment industry, just as it is in other industries. While renowned garment manufacturers like Esquel Group, MAS Holdings and many others claim to have benefited from LEAN Manufacturing practices, there are scores of others who do not seem to have been as successful (with LEAN).Studies seem to indicate that failure rate of Lean Tools in garment manufacturing is as high as 90 per cent, while other industries seem to have got it right anywhere between 50 per cent to 90 per cent of times. McKinsey Consulting refers to a thumb rule that 70 per cent of all change initiatives fail; and is ‘Lean’ a victim of such a false-start?
Even in the vendor companies of automobile giants (from where lean has originated) such as Maruti Suzuki, Ford, Honda, Toyota etc., the manufacturing excellence teams fail to analyse the end results of a simple Kaizen and its impact on PQCDSM (Productivity, Quality, Cost, Delivery, Safety, and Morale).Therefore, one can think of the backwardness of these tools in a much more complex garment industry.It’s true that lean tools are proven method for waste reduction of all types (D.O.W.N.T.I.M.E.) but most garment factories fail to identify wastages. This happens when they try to adopt lean for audits and paperwork, and not for process improvement. There are several reasons for lean failure and Team Apparel Resources has identified the most crucial ones here…
- Do factories have the right context to apply Lean?
“Is there clarity on the context of why they are tending towards Lean manufacturing; are they just doing it because of customer imposition?” asks Sridhar Rajagopal, an industry-veteran and Chief Mentor of REDEFINE. He goes on to state that factories which do not have a clear context of why they are doing it, are surely setting themselves up for failure with Lean. “I am yet to come across a manufacturer who asks for Lean implementation to optimise processes in a way that reduces pressure on workers – so they can produce more with lesser efforts!More often than not, factory owners opine that Lean can be used as a marketing tool to procure more orders.”
What Sridhar Rajagopal shares completely makes sense as garment shopfloors are poorly organised and often it happens that a short-term lean project gets initiated overnight just to please buyers during their visits or to send them factory visuals. Below-mentioned are some of the common statements that factories give when they decide to go for lean implementation:
“I know I can get more orders out of it”
“I know my GM is manipulating things, so I need system in place for transparency”
“I want my fabric wastage to be reduced”
“Very rarely I come across such factories that say they want lean because they don’t want their workers to feel the pressure of production and hence want to optimise processes,” shares Sridhar.
Identifying the same as one of the most common pitfalls the factories are accustomed to, Anand Deshpande, Founder and CEO, ADMAA Consulting (India)– one of the most renowned manufacturing business consultants – avers, “Factories will do some 5S and start believing their premises ‘look good’ just to get orders…But real essence of Lean lies in process efficiency and quality improvement through standardisation and waste elimination which is totally missing. Instead of strengthening these areas, factories look for easy pickings.”
- Lack of management’s commitment ruins lean project in long run
Unfortunately, many garment factory owners have very skewed understanding of lean. The management processes are weak and structure is not very organised. If factory owners are wanting to implement lean in long-term, the management has to be committed and disciplined in terms of making sure the practices that have been introduced are sustained and continued.
“During one of my projects, the owner of the factory personally used to go with me when I used to visit the factory once in 15 days and that owner always ensured he is present on that day. He used to come with me on the shopfloor and understand what I am trying to do there and, most importantly, why! I was able to turn around his factory in just one year and, believe me, even today it is running at higher efficiencies in small scale multi-national company category than its other counterparts. So the biggest change comes from commitment from management which is massively lacking,” mentions Anand.
Mentioning this challenge, Jorg Martz, an Industry Veteran and Business Consultant to the Garment Industry from South Africa, shares, “We did some lean in our plant [where he was once working] which was fruitful. But, there has to be a management commitment to carry on. Unfortunately that did not happen in our company and it failed.”
Secondly, not just top management, the general talent pool within the mid-management in the garment industry is also responsible as it is not highly open to learning management concepts. It’s unfortunate to even say that mostly mid-management people work only for salaries and the least they want is to make themselves accountable for the projects they are assigned with, without manipulating the decision makers. “This is such a dangerous trend and, until this sees drastic change, lean project will not be able to succeed,” statesAnand.
- Factories try to do too many things in too little time
Even though the whole concept of lean was driven from automobile industry, the beauty of these tools is that one can apply it in every manufacturing sector and even in corporate world, provided they study it well and give time. Garment factories try to do too many things in too little time. Citing an example, Sridhar says, “If I go to a factory, I find I have to fix their inventory problems, omit overproduction problem, improve efficiencies and reduce defect issues etc. All these things can’t happen simultaneously. Factories need to give time to improve each of these areas but they don’t!”
Chakravyuhis one of the solutions that Sridhar himself applies… “I first fix all the peripheral systems and then go into lean.”
- An IE alone can’t drive lean…
One of the missing links is not having an efficient project team that drives lean. The project team should consist of senior management person, GMs, senior quality person, senior production member and IE, and collectively they should be driving lean.An IE alone can’t drive lean. On top of that is the high attrition rates of the factories. “If I have a weak recruitment program in place, what point does it make to go to floor and start lean project when attrition rate is as high as 20 per cent and more? Most of the consultants don’t look at that way. We go to operators first and ask them if they are getting enough materials or support so that their work is not hampered? Then only we can start productivity improvement programs,” suggests Sridhar.
The factories should be asked the following question before taking up lean project in hand –
“Are these guys [on shopfloor] loyal to you or are going to stay with you for a certain period of time?” Then only a consultant can/should train them right from day one so that even if they exit from that project after its completion, they don’t have to worry because this well-versed and efficient team is now able enough to drive lean in the factories for a long-run. This will also develop a common understating of lean tools among all involved people right from HR, Production, Quality to IE teams.
“Some things may sound simple but are fundamental to the lean project and need to be taken care of. Everyone wants change, but everybody needs to change,” asserts Sridhar.
- Instead of process improvisation, the buyers focus more on cost cutting
Largely, the fashion retailers or the buying side are more concerned about cost rather than processes and that’s a bitter fact. Rarely does it happen that a brand/retailer/buyer shows concern towards badly managed practices inside a factory where their orders are being produced until the cost is under control.The retailers shouldemphasise companies implement lean properly and they need to think beyond cost-driven decision. What happens is that retailers are happy as long as the cost is under control.
“Lack of interest in retailers to go beyond the cost equation rather than looking at processes is somehow hurting the garment industry. In the automotive industry, the companies like Ford have Suppliers Technical Assistance program where they go and assist their suppliers to improve their processes so as to make them more robust, efficient as well as to reduce waste. Those things are missing in the garment industry,” states Anand.
- Factories fail to amalgamate 4.0 tools with traditional lean tools
At a time when Industry 4.0 has been at the forefront of the manufacturing industry with more automation, more communication between plant and devices, and more data becoming readily available than ever before, the garment factories have failed to understand that these tools only give you real time data and the analysis of this data has to be done by human only. The coexistence of lean manufacturing and Industry 4.0 may not be as harmonious as it seems and that’s where the key lies. Factories just go after ‘inexpensive’ digital tools and expect they will do the rest. The waste reduction in garment manufacturing still needs revolutionary efforts and technology alone can’t help. Lean can be a lethal weapon if combined with ‘digital tools’ or ‘4.0 solutions’ and help apparel factories in reaching at a stage where they don’t have to worry about defects, piling inventories, breakdowns, efficiency and delivery!
“Smart factory is also a tool. The problem is that this tool will not give you an improvement in efficiencies or reduction in waste if you have not studied your processes well. What really works is the understanding of constraints through IoT or these tools and solving them on hourly basis by an efficient team that takes decision which is again lacking in the industry. I can bet on this fact that technology is of no use without a team that is well-versed in process understanding,” mentions Anand.
Some factories think lean is an old method, hence they prioritise 4.0 tools over it and pay price in long run. In the words of Irindu Liyanage, Head of Plant Lean Enterprise, MAS Bodyline (Sri Lanka), “Lean is not old school. It’s a total management system where Industry 4.0 is a part of it. Ultimately it’s all about continuous improvement, so if someone sees lean as old school that means they have not continuously improved.”
- Shopfloor Culture is also a culprit…
Entire lean concept starts with 5S– Sort (Seiri); Set in order (Seiton); Shine (Seiso); Standardise (Seiketsu); and Sustain/Self-discipline (Shitsuke). It’s worth noting here that ‘Standardise’ is an outcome from ‘Set in order’ and ‘Shine’, while ‘Sort’ is necessary to make premises clean! A messy factory is not a lean factory, so this whole system needs a significant boost in garment factories.
Garment factories also talk about efficiency and capacity enhancement while they go for lean tools. However, their intent might be right, but their approach and execution remain faulty! “If a factory reaches 70 per cent efficiency, they think they are good. But nobody thinks they can do better or aim at achieving 100 per cent efficiency. They don’t realise that the whole principle of line balancing is to make sure, there is no stoppage/hurdles in change-over and factories should be able to just change it without wasting any time. That doesn’t happen! For this to happen smoothly, it is required the workers in each line are multi-skilled, that’s what continuous improvement is all about – multi-skilling,” comments Greg Fleming, a Senior Supply Chain Experts of Vietnam and COO of Elise Fashion, Vietnam, adding, “Another reason behind low success rate of lean is culture… If you have a person handling lean implementation and he/she ‘instructs’ worker – who might be having 10-15 years of experience in working on shopfloor –what to do, that’s wrong approach…Instead this person should be working in conjunction with workers to find out better ways of implementing lean tools.”
