Team Working in Indian Apparel Manufacturing

Rajesh Bheda & Prabir Jana

Authors acknowledge the effort of GMT students who carried out these pilot research studies, the faculty
members of the GMT Department, New Delhi and the factory personnel for their kind cooperation. The
names of the factories are changed in this article.

As post MFA challenge is approaching and everybody is debating over India's strength
and weakness, we felt like writing about Team working, an important concept fledging to
flourish. Survival of the fittest was, is and will be the norm for garment manufacturers not
only in India but all over the world. But how to survive? Though there are differences of
opinion, but one thing is clear, that you have to differentiate yourself from others. Be it in
merchandise types, cost factor or in service element (read delivery and quality).

Though team working is being practiced in many organisations in different functional

areas, in the Western apparel industry it has been implemented mainly in the sewing room.
Teamwork in sewn product industry initially started way back in 80's in Toyota car seat
manufacturing factory and evolved over the years. Currently it exists in different forms and
also known by different terminologies like Modular, Linear, TSS (Toyota Sewing System)
etc. What it requires mainly is a group of multi-skilled operators sew the complete garment.
Group size depends on product type, operator's skill etc. but generally varies between
minimum three to maximum twenty. The empowered group members have onus to deliver
quality and quantity at right time and may have one leader.

Majorities of the apparel-manufacturing firms still existing in developed countries like EU,
Japan and US have adopted teamwork to achieve quick turnaround of fashion products in
a desperate bid to counter onslaught of imports. Those firms also reported productivity
gains of 15% to 60% along with improved quality and quick response or one of these.

Lot has been written in journals and magazines in recent times about team working, it’s
advantages and disadvantages. We are not going to repeat the same story once again.
The irony is that after reading these articles about team working, when enthusiastic
manufacturers wish to seek case studies on the implementation of Team Working, there is
very little to draw from. This article is an attempt to present summarised results of
three projects by the GMT students to introduce team working in apparel factories
from Grater Delhi region.

Case One
It was early 1995, Aruna Clothing Pvt. Ltd., a progressive shirt manufacturer catering to
domestic market took up the concept of modular manufacturing to be implemented by two
GMT students of NIFT Delhi under able guidance of a faculty member. Aruna Clothing was
manufacturing shirts using Make Through (read piece rate) system.

Aim
To use team working for increasing labour productivity and bringing consistency in product
quality by using work aids and attachments

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Methodology
A team of four operators consisting of one highly skilled, two medium skilled and one low
skilled, were formed. Total operations of shirt were grouped into four operations according
to similarity and skill level requirement. Side seam (by feed off arm) and bottom-hemming
(by using hemmer) operations were kept out of module for simplicity. T-guides and
compensating pressure foots were fitted in respective machines to achieve quality
consistency in operation.

Outcome
The module was operational for 60 working days. During the first phase spanning 20 days
average labour productivity was 4.55 shirts per shift with the highest of 5.75. Then the low
skilled operator left for not being able to handle the pressure of new way of working. The
module of three people continued with regrouping of operations. Pre-pressed components
were provided to the group to achieve productivity and consistent quality. During those 2nd
phase spanning 30 days average labour productivity was 8.25 shirts with maximum of 10.
With introduction of attachments and pre-pressed components the merchandise quality
became fairly consistent, team started realizing the benefit and asking for more such
helps. Unfortunately during third phase spanning 10 days the module gradually broke
down as lot of operators either left or took leave at their whims and fancy due to religious
festivity. That necessitated that some of the operators from the module had to serve other
activities in the organization.

Conclusions
Though the experiment resulted in sizable productivity improvement, due to following
reasons the implementation did not continue:
• The factory was small (only 30 tailors) and found it difficult to implement the change.
• High levels of absenteeism due to religious holidays (Id and Holi) affected availability of
tailors
• Tailors with different socio-cultural background found it difficult to work together as a
team
• Habit of working independently on piece rate, restricted workers from accepting group
payment

Case Two
Year 1998, Texfab Garments, a garment exporter with 20 crore rupees annual turnover
decided to implement "teamworking" with the help of two GMT students from New Delhi.
Company had three manufacturing units in Gurgaon, two were working on assembly line
and one was working on Make Through. As high as 76% of the operators of the factory
were migrant workers from Bihar and UP and rest from Delhi and Gurgaon. Interestingly
only 4 % of operators were staying with family and rest either staying alone or teaming up
with fellow operators.

Aim
To increase productivity, decrease throughput time and improve flexibility for catering
smaller order quantities.

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Methodology
Operators from existing assembly line were asked to volunteer for separate module. Out of
volunteers, five operators and one helper was selected to form the first team. Preference
was given to workers with experience of ‘Jugad’ system.

Outcome
The module was operational for approximately 40 working days. During the first phase of
10 days average labour productivity was 4.22 blouses with highest of 6.2. Then followed
team meeting, a leader was formally chosen and everyone vowed to achieve the target.
During 2nd phase spanning 12 days, average labour productivity rose up to 8.53 blouses
with maximum of 10.6 blouses per shift. Due to management wish the team leader position
was made rotating and a new leader was elected. Under the new leadership the team
maintained avg. productivity of 8.28 blouses during third phase of 10 days, despite one
person leaving the team. Apart from increase in productivity teamwork also resulted
improvement in quality and quicker response time, what the factory management was
aiming for. During this period factory load increased, lot of workers went back to hometown
(as usual) and management decided to disband the team and use the team members in
other production lines.

Conclusions
Labour shortage forced management to change priority and experiment took a back seat.
Management could not resist the short-term gain of bringing back the utility worker (during
the tenure of experiment every worker became multi-skilled) to the line. Though migrant
labour force has an advantage of team spirit and sense of unity as they often lived
together, but on the other hand lack of commitment and continuity in service made it
extremely difficult for the management to plan out anything.

• A note on Jugad: [Skilled karigars engaged in make through (read piece rate) system of
garment manufacturing in and around Delhi, sometimes team up with collegues or
cousins for intelligent work distribution to introduce division of labour for higher
productivity. This is known as Jugad system in industry parlance.]

Case Three
In 1999, one of the most progressive apparel manufacturers from Delhi decided to
experiment with team working by implementing a pilot module at their manufacturing unit in
Noida. Again a GMT student team from NIFT Delhi was given the task.

Aim
To achieve productivity in an environment, that has frequent style change and small
volumes.

Methodology
Selected style was analyzed and different operations were grouped to determine the team
size. Multiskilled operators were selected from existing workforce keeping in mind that
team should have a communicator, a collaborator, a challenger and a contributor. The
module was set up with five members, and machines to operator ratio of 8:5.

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Outcome
The pilot module was run for 19 days with a changeover of style after first nine days. The
operator productivity gradually increased from 7.5 to 15 of paijamas during the pilot run. A
comparative analysis shows clear improvements from existing assembly line operation to
teamwork.
Parameters Assembly Line Teamwork
Actual operator productivity in pieces (10 hr. shift) 11.8 14.82
Repair percentage 17.86 9.09
Throughput time per bundle in hours 19.94 4.85

Conclusions
With the development of team the policies, procedures and systems of the organisation
need to be changed gradually. The team was set up on experimental basis and the
management did not consider to continue once the project was over or even set up again
in future.

Conclusions
The three cases discussed in this article, establish that implementation of Team Working
has good potential in Indian apparel industry. All three cases did show improved
productivity during the pilot projects. Other objectives like reducing throughput time and
repair levels were also achieved. However, these pilot projects did not continue after the
GMT students withdrew from the factory. Lack of seriousness, non-involvement of factory
staff in the project and shifting priorities were the common problems for above three
organizations.

The summer projects and diploma projects by students of professional education institutes
can be an excellent opportunity for apparel manufacturers to try out new ideas through
pilot projects at much lower cost. Continuing the projects require a clear understanding of
the philosophy on part of factory personnel and commitment from upper management.
However, if the management is not willing to or capable of learning through the results and
does not recognize the opportunity to launch full-fledged improvement programs, these
initiatives remain confined to the efforts of the young students. We believe that team
working and many such practices have a tremendous potential to help Indian apparel
manufacturers to improve their performance and achieve their short term and long-term
goals. It is true that managing Change is a painful process. It is clear that only the fittest
will survive the intensifying competition and we hope that readers know that ‘survival is not
compulsory’. We would like to invite interested industry members who are committed to
bring in change and would like to implement innovative improvement projects through
GMT students.