My thoughts as a Production Planner

Apparel manufacturing is an increasingly sophisticated interplay of human and material resources. These are required to manufacture often complex products with tight margins and short delivery schedules. As a result, manufacturing planning, control, and scheduling have become more important than ever. A variety of materials and labor need to be seamlessly coordinated to meet customer requirements and evolving market demands.

As a manufacturer one can only improve forecast accuracy, the forecasts will never be perfect.

CONVICTION

Apparel manufacturing has been following traditional practices for years. They are often rigid towards change & innovation. This lack of will & confidence towards innovation often leads to recurrence of multiple issues in production planning. It may also lead to the loss of valuable customers over time.

Any problem in planning leads to a chain of unpleasant events affecting the shipment schedule & subsequent orders.

Thus, production control should be seen as an inseparable function of production planning.

Planning & scheduling has a wide-reaching impact. It depends on multiple factors & leads to a chain reaction in the further processes. The planner needs to have a sharp mind with an ability to forecast, & great negotiation skills.

Vendor Skill sets

Many of our vendor base specialises in a specific product line. It's rare to find a manufacturing set up with multi-product capabilities. An understanding of this skill set is very important in production planning.

Region of Expertise

Some regions have developed as a specialty centre with multiple vendors specialising in the same product line. For e.g Tiruppur is the epicentre for souring knit t-shirts, with multi-sized vendors catering to different kinds of orders. This creates an ease for the souring function, but a contingency plan is very important. One needs to explore outside the territory too.

Complexity of Product

This can also be termed as value addition. Very few planners pay attention to becoming category specialists. Planners must become experts in balancing the line & ensuring timely delivery.

Compliance of Vendor

This is one of the most important factors in production planning. Also, one which is usually undermined. In my experience, I have seen that sometimes it may take up to 3 months for the vendors to get compliant to the desired standards.

Cost

A planner needs to work on reducing costs by using various methods. Decreasing the need for safety stocks & excessive work in process inventories is the key to that. Optimised equipment & increased capacity are also factors which impact costs

Lead times of Product

Planners have to tirelessly work towards reducing manufacturing lead times. Larger order quantities work on efficiencies and are rather easy. Innovation is required in planning & executing the smaller quantities with consistent quality.

What we tend to ignore during Production planning:

• Line planning of like to like products/brands in succession.
• Coordination of material resource with approvals in sync to loading plans and aligning of cross-functional teams.
• Critical path Control and Predictions: Tweaking of plans with practical issues induced as daily tasks.
• Cascading Effect: Every delay has a cascading effect. Preparing a plan B in conjunction to anticipate catastrophe.
• Logistics: Brands have stringent logistics dates once booked for. Planners need to consider these to mitigate the timelines.
• Recording and Communicating Wrong Data: Every cross-functional team must have an insight of delays and implications. Always be prepared with a plan B.

Living with Bottlenecks

Constraints or restrictions are an integral part of production planning. These often become bottlenecks & hamper the process flow. It is imperative to assess these at the beginning & minimise their impact. Dealing with bottlenecks is a continual challenge for any business.

Efficient & effective production planning involves the intricate choreography of all manufacturing elements, so that they come together in a cohesive, timely fashion to speed the production process along to a successful, profitable conclusion

How To Improve Planning In The Apparel Industry?

Consider change

One of the many challenges of production planning and scheduling is following up with changes in orders. Changes happen every day, a planner needs to adjust the inline plan & advise the vendor accordingly. Dealing with these changes is not always easy and may take as much effort as creating the original production plan.

Software tools help with most of the essential reports like line balancing, WIP, individual operator performance, line performance, and employee earnings within a second.

Real-time data tracking and production management systems are inevitable in today's digital world to tackle high running costs.

It's the manufacturing units that need to adapt as quickly as possible. It's quite a complex process to understand customer needs, brand requirements, designer attributes, and supply chain. But technology & innovation make them easier.

RELATED TOPICS:#Apparel,manufacturing,clothing,production,planning,Ajay Ravuri