How to Make Production Planning Task Easier?

Planning tools: The primary planning tools used by a planner in a garment export house to do production plan are likely,

• A planning board (excel sheet or printed format). See below image.
• Time and action calendar (order wise). Time and Action calender format for production merchant.
• Line plan sheet 

Pre-requisites information: Following information must be available to make your planning faster and accurate.

• Process flow of an order or list of tasks
• Production capacity of each process - Cutting, sewing, washing and finishing, for sewing - line wise and product wise capacity (pieces per day per line)
• Pre-production status - Such as fabric and trims are sourced or not. If not yet sourced the expected sourcing date, PP sample approved or not or expected approval date
• Shipment date or planned ex-factory date

Planning process does not change based on fabric used in product like woven or knits factory. It is the process flow of an order, machine requirement and production capacity those vary. Here are ways how planning tools are used to make planning task easier.

#1. Time and Action calendar - Planned cutting date (PCD) and ex-factory date which are two most critical dates for planning can be picked from TnA calendar. You will get total days available to you for all production processes. Even you will get rough distribution of start and finish date of each processes.

Order quantity is generally available in TnA calendar.

For example, Total available time for production is 20 days (PCD 1st Dec 2012 and Final inspection date 20th Dec 2012). Order qty. = 10000 pieces and main processes are cutting, sewing, finishing, folding and packing and final inspection. List of processes can also be picked from Process-flow chart.

#2. Planning Board: Line loading plan can be made for single process or multiple processes in a planning board. For reference I have attached below a planning board for multiple processes. Based on available time and production capacity of a line you may have plan for multiple lines a for order. Secondly, You may have postpone production start date if there no free space to load new order.
Once you draw timeline for an order on the planning board you can see available capacity in a particular line and according to that you can make planning for following orders.

#3 Calculations: First calculate capacity requirement for the order you are going to plan. Secondly, check capacity availability in all processes on the given time frame. Line capacity can be also calculated in minutes.   For example, a garment SAM is 30 minutes and line performs at 50% efficiency. Calculate total capacity required (man hours) to complete sewing on time. 

Role of the SAM Value in Production Planning and Control

SAM value of a garment is defined as how much time it would take to complete a garment in sewing. This is also known as garment work content and standard minutes.

key roles of PPC department

• Determining capacity of the factory and capacity of the individual sewing lines in terms of how many pieces (product specific) factory can make in a certain time period with existing machines capacity. 
• Order booking based on factory capacity for different types of products
• Allocating of styles to the lines
• Determining production lead time for each orders (styles)
• Process scheduling
• Production execution and monitoring 

Roles of SAM Value in Production Planning includes

1. Line Capacity Calculation: The scientific method of calculating production capacity of a line (in production pieces per day) is to use standard time (SAM) of a garment. So, to determine production capacity of a line (for specific products) in pieces you need to know garment SAM. 

2. Lead Time Calculation: Based on the production capacity, order allocation is done for different lines. A planning guy also need to calculate how long a style would run in a line if loaded in a single line. If you need to complete the order in less time, calculate how many lines to be considered for an order.

3. Order booking: During order booking, you need to consider capacity availability in a certain period. In such cases you can use how many minutes you need to make the new orders using garment SAM value and compare the same with how many production minutes are available in your factory for the defined period.

4. Process Scheduling: Time and action calendar or production process scheduling of each order is done by planning department. Again to schedule a list of tasks, you need to know capacity of each process per day (or a predefined period). Based on the capacity of each process you allocate no. of days for the process. Like for sewing department, you determine sewing capacity of your line (or multiple lines) and according to that you set how many days to be given to sewing department for production.

5. Order Execution and Production Monitoring: Standard minutes help planners to set target for sewing lines. Mutually agreed and calculated target given to line supervisors. On daily basis when you check production status you can compare actual production with target production. In case production is getting delayed you can push production team based on given target.

6. Labor Cost Estimation: One most important task is labor cost estimation of a specific order. To estimate how much labor cost to be considered for an order (style), you can’t make labor costing without having garment SAM value.

All the above six points is proving that garment SAM plays a big role in production planning and controlling function in garment industry.

How to Make Production Plan Without SAM Value?

Yes, there is a way to perform production planning tasks without garment SAM value.

The alternative way is calculating machine productivity to estimate line capacity as well as your factory capacity. If one know the procedure and formula of calculating productivity of the production floor, can find machine productivity easily. Later this productivity data would be considered as base of production planning. 

Method of calculating Machine productivity:

Machine productivity is defined as number of units produced per machine in a given time period.

Machine productivity = (Total production of a line in a day / No. of machines in the line) pieces per day per machine 

For example, suppose a line of 35 machines has produced 280 pieces per day (8 hours shift day). Machine productivity of the line 
= 280/35 pieces per machine per 8 hours day 
= 8 pieces per machine per 8 hours day

Finding daily line output data and machine numbers would not be a difficult job to anyone. Just for your information - style to style productivity will vary depending on work content of the style. So, you can prepare a database of the machine productivity for the previously produced styles. You can use historical data while required and update your machine productivity after each style gets over.

How to use productivity data in Production Planning?

Factory capacity Calculation:

Suppose machine productivity of your factory for ladies blouse is 6 pieces per machine per 8 hours shift and you have total 400 machines in your factory. So daily production capacity of your factory for ladies blouse would be equal to 400*6 pieces or 2400 piece per day (8 hours shift).

Factory capacity calculation formula of a given product

Factory capacity  (in pieces) = (Machine productivity * No. of running machines in your factory)  

Other planning related tasks those can be performed using factory capacity and line capacity figures are as following -

• Lead time calculation
• Order booking  
• Order scheduling
• Cost per piece

You can also measure line capacity using labor productivity data. But machine number in a factory is more stable than manpower (labor).

5 Key Steps of Critical Path Management and Common Fashion Industry Problems

Production Planning, Work Scheduling and making Time & Action Calendar for orders are very common tasks for garment industry professionals. 

• 5 key steps of good CPM

1. Define the events, durations & persons responsible
2. Set targets and priorities for each event
3. Update task status daily
4. Manage the exceptions, fast track & re-plan
5. Measure your actual performance KPI & Continuous Improvement

Production Planning and Control – the Concept and Definition

Production planning is a managerial function mainly concerned with the following issues.

• What production facilities are required?
• Layout of production facility to be laid out in the space available for the production
• Desired product at the desired rate of production

Production planning has a dynamic nature and has to be changed according to the changes in circumstances. 

Requirements of Production Planning

A production plan should be based on accurate data. Random calculation or guess works should be avoided while planning as it can have a chain effect on the whole plan. Plans should be flexible to accommodate any deviation from the conditions and situations as perceived during planning. A rigid plan will be an accessory to fall as it may lead to compromises on various fronts which may not be suitable for longer duration. Any plan should satisfy pre defined objectives like timely delivery, quality etc. Plan should be simple and straight forward with a robust reporting system so that right information reaches at right place in right time.

Production Control

Production control is a mechanism to monitor the execution of plans. Production operation should start at right time and the progress should be observed and recorded properly so that the data can be analyzed and deviation can be measured to initiate a suitable action i.e. change in plan. Corrective action should be taken immediately in order to minimize the negative impact of deviation from the plan. There should be a feedback system in order to improve future plans.

Challenges in Production Planning and Control in Apparel Manufacturing

1. Delay in Raw Material Sourcing and approval
2. Delay in Sample Approval
3. Production Delay
4. Recording and communication wrong data
5. Failing in Final QA inspection

A planner need to have a cut off time of 3-7 days to give go ahead for the production of the order if the production order (PO) has cleared all the necessary pre-production approvals and the raw material is in-house. 

A process can be devised where the merchandiser has to give the PO production certificate verifying all the necessary approvals and material requirement to the planner so that he can schedule the production. Production Planner should have a good network of fabricators so that some orders can be outsourced to maintain the sanity of the production plan.

Garment Manufacturing Process Flow Chart

Based on present apparel industry, garment manufacturing processes are categorized as 

• Pre-Production Processes - Pre-production process includes sampling, sourcing of raw materials, Approvals, PP meeting etc. Read this for further reading on pre-production processes.
• Production processes - Production processes are cutting, sewing etc.
• Post production processes - thread trimming, pressing, checking, folding and packing, shipment inspection etc.

Chart#1. Garment manufacturing process flow chart (major processes)

Chart#2. Cutting Room Process Flow Chart

Chart#3. Finishing Process Flow Chart