Lead Time Reduction in Merchandising Processes(1)

8/10/2019 Lead Time Reduction in Merchandising Processes(1)

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Lead Time Reduction In Pre-

Production ProcessesMid Term Evaluation

PRESENTED BY:

Aman Anshu

D/BFT-AP/09/03

B.F.Tech(AP)


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INTRODUCTION

Evolving consumer preferences whose awareness levels of trends, fashion

consciousness, disposable income and consumerism generally interested in FAST

FASHION concept. This is inducing product lifecycles to shrink dramatically,

driving the needs of even more new products.

Merchandisers are the key for the success of any garment retail business. They strive

for ensuring the right products at the right time, enabling a company to match with

latest market trends and meet the market demand.

Their goal is not only to deliver the product at low cost but most importantly in

shorter time which can be achieved by ensuring proper coordination among

different activities.


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In todaysscenario- leanis the buzz word making the delivery quick and ontime

is the main objective of any retailer and manufacturer, reducing the delay elements

which are normally non value added elements and making the entire supply chain

more efficient and agile.

Hence, entire pre production, production and post production activities need to bemanaged properly. This also leads to getting more order, more profit and good

name and reputation in this competitive scenario.

Pre Production delays are the extension of the days beyond standard and

planned schedule for the activities starting from order enquiry to all approvals

required for bulk production. These delays increases the lead-time even more than

the standard one and hence to survive in the global competitiveness is much

more difficult for the manufacturers.


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Need For The Study:

Merchandising is the backbone of any apparel manufacturing/exporting/buying

company, so the efficiency and effectiveness of merchandising process is

inevitable for the timely delivery of goods.

Execution of pre-production activities as per the merchandising plan always

gives an edge for the company in current cut throat competition and any delay

in these processes hugely affects the lead time.

Delay in any of pre-production activities adversely affecting the further

processes as they take up 60-70% of total lead-time.

Shrinkage in product life cycles demanding shorter lead times.


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Scope of the Project:

Orders, executed in the period of Feb13-Apr13, were selected for study.

Helps us to get a view of process flow of product at pre-production.

Establish framework of set of activities required for excluding the delay element.

Beneficial for company to execute order with smaller runs and frequent varying

style.

The study will help the organization to reduce the delay in merchandising

process by identifying and rectifying some of the causes of delay.


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OBJECTIVES

Primary Objectives:

1. To find out the reasons for delays at pre-production stage.

2. To identify the gap areas and propose a solution for the same.

Secondary Objectives:

1. To analyze merchandising process at a Buying house.

2. Understanding the work culture of different departments, occurrence ofdelays and their magnitude.

3. Providing probable solutions to the delays

4. To understand cost implication of delays


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Project Brief

The study was undertaken principally to analyze the pre-production

processes and to understand the internal weakness and flaws of the

company there by finding out the internal problems of the organization.

Further, focusing into the major reasons for the problems and coming upwith some practical suggestions to overcome the problem to an extent.

The project is carried out at a buying house based in Gurgaon which deals

with buyers from all over the globe. To name a few: ESPRIT, BONITA,

NEXT, MEXX and many more.


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They have a central planning and control cell which is responsible for planning and

making time and action calendars for all the orders they receive. Further, it is

forwarded to merchandisers for the order execution as per the planned dates.

It is observed that there is a lot of variation in the planned and actual T&As in the

pre-production activities.

The project is aimed at trying to identify the reasons for these delays and analyze

them. This study is an effort to reduce the delay in pre-production activity as it is

crucial, because the pre-production delays can affect the further production process.


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If the company can find out the major reasons for the delays and try to get some practical solution

for it, then it will be helpful for the smooth running of the whole merchandising process and goods

can be delivered as per the planned date. In order to find a way out from this problem this study

has been done.

As an initial step, the study gives more focus on the thorough study on merchandising process and

T&A of various orders. Then the study moves towards analyzing and finding out the reasons and

causes for the problem and aims at coming up with acceptable practical solutions and suggestions.

The collected data will be classified and tabulated. Simple tables will be prepared and liberally used

to exhibit the classified data to provide easy and better understanding of the study. This study will

provide significant inputs to the industry peoples as well as academicians towards unleashing the

lead time of the Indian garment industry and enable the industry to realize its rightful place in the

global economic space. The goal of the apparel industry is not delivering within the original cost

and expected time estimates but the impetus is now on shrinking the existing lead times in order to

compete with the international supply chain standards


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TIME AND ACTION CALENDER AND DELAY

ANALYSIS

Time and action calendar is prepared by the central planning and controlling department.The T&A calendar acts or guides the merchandiser to plan his schedules and work as per the dategiven for each and every activity in the T&A. T&A is prepared for each and every order. When an

order is received by merchandiser from the buyer then he will forward a copy of tech pack to theplanning cell. In turn the planning cell will prepare the T&A by practically thinking on all theinternal and external problems and delays which may occur during the execution of thatparticular order.

Here analysis is done with the help of 4 orders and the focus is given on that activity where moredeviation has happened.


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Time and Action calendar Order 1 Order 2 Order 3 Order 4

KEY ACTIVITIES P* A* P* A* P* A* P* A*

Lab Dip Approval (sent to buyer) 02-Dec 05-Dec 02-Dec 03-Dec 02-Dec 02-Dec 02-Dec 02-Dec

Yarn in- house 12-Dec 16-Dec 12-Dec 10-Dec 12-Dec 13-Dec 12-Dec 14-Dec

Griege fabric in house date 02-Dec 02-Dec 02-Dec 02-Dec

Finish Fabric in-house 12-Dec 12-Dec 12-Dec 12-Dec

Bulk fabric approval (sent to buyer) 22-Dec 22-Dec 22-Dec 22-Dec

Bulk fabric approval (receive from buyer)

Further Fabric Processesing

Print/Embroidery strike off(sent to buyer) NA NA 03-Dec 03-Dec 03-Dec 03-Dec NA NA

Print/Embroidery strike off comments (received

from buyer)

NA NA 06-Dec 07-Dec 06-Dec 05-Dec NA NA

Fit Sample Approval (sent to buyer) 10-Dec 18-Dec 10-Dec 14-Dec 10-Dec 13-Dec 10-Dec 14-Dec

Fit sample approval comments(received from

buyer)

17-Dec 25-Dec 17-Dec 20-Dec 17-Dec 22-Dec 17-Dec 24-Dec

PP Sample submission 28-Dec 07-Jan 28-Dec 31-Dec 28-Dec 3-0-12 28-Dec 05-Jan

PP Sample approval to receive 04-Jan 15-Jan 04-Jan 07-Jan 04-Jan 08-Jan 04-Jan 13-Jan

Size Set sample approval (sent to buyer) 07-Jan 25-Jan 07-Jan 11-Jan 07-Jan 11-Jan 07-Jan 16-Jan

Size set sample approval (receive from buyer) 10-Jan 30-Jan 10-Jan 15-Jan 10-Jan 15-Jan 10-Jan 20-Jan

Stitching accessories in-house 12-Jan 15-Jan 12-Jan 12-Jan 12-Jan 12-Jan 12-Jan 12-Jan


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Packing accessories in-house 08-Jan 16-Jan 08-Jan 08-Jan 08-Jan 10-Jan 08-Jan 09-Jan

Cutting start date 11-Jan 01-Feb 11-Jan 16-Jan 11-Jan 16-Jan 11-Jan 21-Jan

Washing start date 15-Jan 05-Feb 15-Jan 21-Jan 15-Jan 22-Jan 15-Jan 25-Jan

Bit print start date NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

Bit embroidery start date NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

Stitching start date 17-Jan 08-Feb 17-Jan 24-Jan 17-Jan 22-Jan 17-Jan 27-Jan

Garment wash start date

Washing end date 03-Feb 22-Feb 03-Feb 09-Feb 03-Feb 07-Feb 03-Feb 08-Feb

Bit print end date 15-Jan 20-Jan NA NA

Bit embroidery end date 15-Jan 20-Jan NA NA

Stitching end date 07-Feb 28-Feb 07-Feb 14-Feb 07-Feb 14-Feb 07-Feb 18-Feb

Garment wash end date

Final inspection 11-Feb 01-Mar 11-Feb 15-Feb 11-Feb 15-Feb 11-Feb 20-Feb

Ex-Factory 14-Feb 03-Mar 14-Feb 17-Feb 14-Feb 17-Feb 14-Feb 22-Feb

Delivery Date 28-Feb 10-Mar 28-Feb 01-Mar 28-Feb 01-Mar 28-Feb 03-Mar


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Pre-production activities and

average Delays

Production Activities and Average

Delays

Fit Sample(6 Days) Cutting Start Date (10 days)

PP Sample (7 Days) Stitching Start Date (11 Days)

Size Set Sample (10 Days) Stitching End Date (9 Days)

Ex- Factory Date (8 Days)

It is noticed that although more average delay has happened in productionactivities, the pre- production activities i.e., sampling delay had played the

major role in it.

So the delays can be controlled to a great extent if company focuses more on

the reasons of pre-production delays with suitable preventive measures.


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METHODOLOGY


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Step 1: Define the Research problem:

A study on causes for delays in Pre-Production- Merchandising activities of

garment manufacturing/buying house.

Step 2: Develop the research plan

Designing a research plan calls for decisions on data sources, choice of research design,

research approaches, research instruments, sampling plan and contact methods.

Data Sources:

- Both secondary as well as primary data have been used.

- Secondary data was collected from literature provided to us by the company.

- Internet, magazines

- The primary data consists of survey of various people involved in related activities, by

asking them to fill up questionnaire and Queries from company employees to understand

the process better.


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Research Design:A research design specifies the methods and procedures for constructing a particular study.

In this research, the design is Descriptive research. The Descriptive research focuses on

the factors, which help to understand the various causes for delays in related activities.

Contact methods:

Once the research plan has been determined, it must be decided how the Subject should be

contacted.

-Past records available at different departments was used.

-Also personal enquiries were also used.


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Step III: Information Collection

Information has been collected from the various people involved in production over a

period of time. It was in the form of filling up of the questionnaire.

Apart from filling up of the questionnaire information was also collected as regard toMOF release dates, Process capacities, selection of vendors, Desired quality levels etc.

Research Tools:

In this research, Questionnaires and Informal enquiries have been used to fill out so asto help in understanding the reasons and coming to conclusions.


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Step IV: Analysis of information

The data that is being collected will be segregated manually and the analysis work will be

done using simple tools such as standard deviations and measures of central tendency. It is

planned to collect data of approximately 30 orders from Feb 13- April 13.

The orders which got delayed in Pre-production stage will be analyzed on the basis of the

following parameters:

Sample submissions

Material procurement

Quality problems

Lab dips

On the basis of Enquiries, the data will be tabulated, charts will be developed and findings

will be extracted from the research.


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Limitations of the Project

In-depth interviews with the department in charges /merchandisers was not possible on

several occasions as they did not have much time to devote.

The planned data collection will only be of Feb13- April13 suggestions and

recommendations are applicable only for the buyersbeing catered to during this interval.

The project was conducted for a company situated in Gurgaon, operating in export and

foreign market. The study may not show the complete picture of apparel industry; rather it

will be confined to a few industries only.

Pre-production process networks are unique for every single vendor/buyer, and even

sometimes for every single order.


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Thank You!!

Documents

Lead Time Reduction in Merchandising Processes(1)