An Observation on Management’s Approach to IE & IT utilizations in Apparel Industry

This research paper is relevant to Indian Apparel manufacturing sector.

I’ve observed that there are increasing number of magazines that have been popularly recognized for its contents and the knowledge sharing platform it is creating in the Apparel industry. This is the vital link that has been missing in the industry. Knowledge sharing is the key to take this industry to new heights & I’m very happy to say that such magazines have taken the initiative to initiate the change. During my experience I’ve seen that these magazines have slowly started changing the mindset of the management. I’ve seen increasing growth in the number of people who are referring to these magazines; hence I feel that time has come for such publishing units to initiate a revolution in the industry:

• Revolution to Change the mindset.
• Revolution to make the industry work professionally & scientifically.
• Revolution to apply the IT solutions and make the process lean.
• Revolution to make industry leaders realize their social responsibilities & obligations.
• Revolution to make India the #1 in apparel manufacturing & exports.

In the following sections to come I’m going to discuss about:

1. Strategy for implementation of IT/ERP in Apparel Manufacturing
2. Utilising DBMS & MIS with the aid of IT in Apparel Manufacturing
3. MAIT – Manufacturers Association for Information Technology
4. Production, Quality & Accountability Systems at factory levels.
5. Computerisation at factory level of the above systems
6. Linking it with other factories & corporate office to create a knowledge library intranet
7. Using the factory Data Base (DB) at corporate level in planning & decision making.
8. Computerisation of Corporate Processes & Services & Utilising DBMS & MIS
9. Using Corporate DB in decision making process
10. RFID Vs Barcode
11. Right Application Industrial Engineers in Apparel Industry.
12. Difference between Industrial Engineers & Production Managers.
13. Scope of Involvement of Industrial Engineers in the Industry
14. Role & responsibilities of Industrial Engineers in the above listed topics from 1 to 10.
15. Licensing Industrial Engineers, NIFT – GMTs, its need & its advantages.
16. Creating a network of IEs, NIFT-GMTs, its need & its advantages.
17. Creation of a Certification body specific to apparel industry in terms of Industry relevant processes, systems, technologies, Machinery, Materials, Equipments, Vendors, Manufacturers, Man Power, Academics Updation, its need & its advantages.

Apparel Industry today is one of the fastest growing industries in India. It is providing employment opportunity at all class of people & hence playing a vital role in boosting the Indian Economy. It has become the next highest paid sector a close second to IT Industry especially in Bangalore. With 2 apparel parks proposed at either ends of the city Bangalore has become the Melting pot for Apparel Manufactures/Exporters. Slowly some big names like Reliance are moving towards the industry. Abolishment of quota system has pushed the industry to operate more professionally & scientifically than before. Companies are recruiting more and more educated & qualified people to make this happen, but the survival rate of such professionals in this industry has been very minimal. Reasons; As long as the old heads from traditional background who have well established themselves in top positions exist in the company/Industry, it becomes that more hard for the industry to operate professionally & scientifically. The problem is that these old heads have established themselves putting in years of service into the company and have proved their success to the management for long period of time. They have learnt the trade by working from the lower most level and have brought themselves up, hence when an educated qualified executive is recruited in the company and has been given a certain responsibility of measuring the efficiency & effectiveness of the process it is creating insecurity among these old heads. The management is feeling the pressure to be more competitive and hence feel the need to cut cost. So they started looking for aids to make them operate at less cost, they realized by some sources that it can be achieved by improving the efficiency & effectiveness of their operations, but most of them don’t have a clue on how to do this. They have seen a common trend of putting up industrial engineering departments & adopting ERP or computerisation of their paper work and follow the same, but the problem is they don’t know how to utilize them. Today in this industry IEs are either under utilized, Overburdened or utilized for wrong means, and when it comes to integrating IT and Apparel Manufacturing they are making even bigger mistakes by investing without proper focus, agenda, and area of coverage. During my short service in the industry I’ve made the following observations on the way IED & IT are being utilized. I’m also writing down some observations on the management styles of the companies in general. Further to these observations I’ve put across my suggestions on how to utilize these powerful tools called IE & IT and how to bring these forces together that can really make India that more a powerful & customer friendly Apparel Manufacturing hub.

Observations on the Management approach to IE Utilisation:

1. The managements are slowly realizing the need of IE & IT in the industry, but they don’t seem to have a clear idea on how to merge or utilize these tools.
2. For some of the companies, the department exists just to impress the customers & show off that they are inclined towards systematically & scientifically analyzing the product & the processes to achieve continuous improvement. In other words just an eye wash.
3. When it comes to IE, they under utilize them, overburden then or don’t utilize them for the right means because, they don’t have a clear idea where IE can be applied and where IE cannot or should not be applied.
4. There can be another reason to this that there are just too many people suggesting too many ideas on how and where to apply IE without giving it a thought or without having a complete knowledge about the Industrial Engineering as a subject or a profession.
5. Few managements just want IEs to take all the responsibilities but don’t want to empower them. They believe for sure that IEs are the key to improve efficiency of operations & effectiveness of the processes, but since they have not seen it from their own eyes or there is no data that directly shows the results of IEs work they have second thoughts about empowering the IEs.
6. Few managements empower the IEs but don’t officially declare it or send across a circular down the hierarchy to ensure that they get opportunity to use their authority in the right way to help the company grow and make more profits.
7. Some management may also send the circular, but the down the level hierarchy doesn’t want to apply it because they have insecurities.
8. Most of the Apparel Manufacturers are INDIVIDUAL DRIVEN but NOT SYSTEM DRIVEN.
9. They may show hundreds of systems in place but again there is a “Driver” to drive that, and once that “Driver” leaves the company the system collapses.
10. Management invests in machinery, equipments, systems & services without conducting a feasibility study or calculating ROI.
11. Due to all these chaos, it is commonly observed that IEs themselves get confused about their responsibilities & area of coverage.

Observations on the Management approach to MIS, ERP adaptation & IT Utilisation:

1. Companies show hundreds of systems, processes, procedures & not to forget the reports in place. But my question is how religiously are they following it?
2. There is no evaluation are auditing system to follow-up the effective practice of these systems, processes, procedures & reports.
3. Some companies also have these auditing or evaluation systems, but how efficient & trust worthy are the auditing & evaluation systems/teams??
4. Let’s say everything is going fine as per the set systems. But I’ve seen across the companies’ duplication of these systems, processes, procedures & especially reports.
5. My next question is all these reports are made and maintained in the file but how many are statistically analyzing these reports and making continuous improvement action plan? How are they using these reports???
6. If they are making certain action plans are they ensuring the implementation of these action plans? Who is being held responsible for this implementation? Who conducts and audit and authenticates to say “Yes this action plan has been implemented & the successes rate or improvement is this much %”.
7. Why do organizations invest so much in getting these systems implemented and don’t make use of it during decision making process? Is all these just another Eye Wash to make the customers happy?
8. I’m surprised, but I’ve to say that some of such companies have also passed ISO audits & other reputed audits which are supposed to be tough audits like that of WRAP certification, NIKE, M & S Audits.
9. But I should also say that NIKE & M&S are some of the toughest audit systems that I’ve ever seen. This is because they conduct technical audits unlike ISO & WRAP. They really get to the details. But companies are really good even to fake them.
10. Companies often get over excited about the implementation of ERP solutions or Production Management Solutions. They end up investing big time into these systems without proper consultation or feasibility study.
11. The biggest reason for the failure of ERP, PMS or any other IT solutions in apparel industry is the companies involve non-functional representatives of the process in the development or implementation stage.
12. Proper Planning is required for adoption of ERP or IT solutions in apparel industry. Planning should have Objective, Scope, Area of Coverage, and Phased Strategy for Implementation, and the most important ingredient for the success should be the depth of coverage & the detailing in terms of process analysis. That’s the Key word for success “DETAILING” which is enormously lacking commonly in our industry today.
13. Ironically in all these companies what I’ve observed is that the management think they know everything and hence don’t feel the need to involve anyone else than themselves in the development & implementation process or they will be just too open & broad minded to anyone & everyone in taking suggestions.
14. There is also another point that adds on to this mess. The management doesn’t analyze or evaluate whom to consult about the ERP/IT solutions.
15. The management doesn’t try to know the depth of the knowledge the person has in the subject whom they are consulting on the subject.
16. The management doesn’t try to evaluate the depth of the knowledge the person has in the subject who is heading the project.