Bangladesh is the 2nd largest readymade garment exporter in the world. But in terms of productivity, its performance is below the mark. Many studies were performed to increase the productivity of our readymade garment industry by applying proper line balancing, time study, lean manufacturing system etc. Similarly this paper is an attempt to analyze the potential increase in garment productivity by applying a non-monetary process that is related with changing the behavioral aspect of the readymade garment workers. The study shows only slight change in worker attitude along with proper supervision can bring about a tremendous increase in garment productivity which can make the readymade garment products more price competitive to the foreign buyers.
Clothing is one of the basic human needs. So each & every country is associated with Clothing business either by import or by export. RMG is the driving force for the economy of Bangladesh (Dowlah, C. A. F., 1999). Bangladesh has already occupied the 2nd position in RMG export in the world market (Kabeer, N., & Mahmud, S. 2004). At present we are earning almost 81% of our foreign currency from RMG export (Sultana, S. et al., 2011). To retain this growth & safeguard our position in world RMG market there is no alternative to increased productivity (Ahmed, N. 2009). As china, the leading producer and exporter of RMG is making them expensive for foreign buyers for increased wage rate and high capital investment;
Bangladesh could be the next viable choice for international apparel buyers for its low production cost solely contributed by low domestic wage rate (Sarkar, L., 2014). But Bangladesh is lagging behind in terms of production efficiency in comparison to its other counterparts. Now with the fact of increased minimum wage rate of RMG workers by almost 77% production efficiency and productivity become a significant issue, moreover competition is so severe among exporting countries that chances of negotiation on price is becoming obsolete (Dr. Shibli, A., 2014). In most factories of Bangladesh, unnecessary talking and lack of concentration to work among sewing operators is a common phenomenon.
operators is a common phenomenon.
This leads to;
• Reduced productivity
• More alterations (Defective sewing operations)
• Disturbance to mindful workers
• More movements of people in the sewing line to pass the defective garments for corrections
• Unnecessary unfolding of different completed processes for back process alter corrections
• Unnecessary bottlenecks* in the line
*One or more operations where the general flow of total work is hampered.
When workers are habituated in unnecessary talking, this leads to more garment alterations and rejections. Because they pay less attention to their work & do not check the sewn garment properly before passing it to the next process operator. He/she is also negligent in checking the previous process before passing the garment to the next operator. Finally when the garment reaches to inline quality checker many alterations are found & the garment is sent back to the respective operators for corrections. Frequently more than one operation is unfolded to make the correction which affects the productivity of that sewing line. Sometimes expert & mindful workers get disturbed for the noise created in the line. To change such attitude of the workers and increase the productivity below experiment was performed at a woven shirt factory.
Methodology
To eliminate the production deadening activities, below points were suggested to the management of a garment factory named Florence Fashions for implementation. A sewing line producing 100% Linen long sleeve men’s shirt was selected to perform the experiment. The management gave permission to perform the experiment understanding that there were many possibilities to increase the productivity. The suggested points are --
• It is mandatory for every worker to use a mask
• Each worker should check his/her process properly before passing the garment to the next operator
• Top three process workers with the least number of alterations will be rewarded at the end of each month which was merely a small amount of money.
Results and Findings
Workers were given masks to reduce unnecessary talking among them. When workers use mask, they find it difficult to talk with each other. If the workers were told that this was due to increase the productivity, they might be negligent to it. So they were told the use of masks is a compulsion from the buyer and this will protect them from different diseases resulting from small fibers entering into the nostrils during work. When the workers were told to completely check each body before passing to next process operator, they opposed & complained this will reduce the production. In this case, time study was performed for each & every worker to show they are capable of fulfilling the set target along with checking the garments. Management was willing to reward the top three best performers of the line to make them mindful to their work. It was also declared that the photographs of the award winning operators will be displayed before the sewing line. Getting notified of these, their mind set was changed.
A sewing line designated as A1 at Florence Fashions was chosen to perform the result of the experiment. The product was 100% Linen L/S men’s shirt of the Buyer Corona. The production report of previous two months for the same quality shirt as well as the existing productivity of the same shirt in the line was taken into consideration as the basis. The average production for the product was 58 pcs/ hr with an average of 45 sewing operators working in the line. Below is the result of the experiment.