Employee Engagement…

Most companies hire consultants and then create circumstances which make it difficult for the consultant to deliver. They unwittingly challenge them to show results by giving them a production line which is already performing at its peak or at times is the worst performing line; in both cases the loss is of the company… There are two critical elements in achieving results – have you chosen the right consultant and are you giving him the right tools including people and authorities to bring about the changes.


To bring about a change in any organization or inculcate a culture which is acceptable to its people, it is important that the top management has complete faith in the consultant… He has to be wholeheartedly supported by assigning him the best of the managers in the organization who are not only liked for their people-management skill but also technically competent to command respect of both the top management and the operators to help lead the changes. This way the consultant will be able to bring necessary changes.


Every consultant brings with him the baggage of his earlier experience, but it is not necessary that his experience will be a success in the current setup because the resources – whether technology, its people or the process – are all different. He has to first study the methods, then evaluate the entire system and finally accord priorities to slowly bring about the changes. The changes need to be brought about in all areas including new equipment, technology solutions and work-aids to having a relook at processes… But the most difficult and challenging area for any consultant is to change the people of wrong habits that impair change!


I once read that Tiger Woods had to stop playing for whole one year to work on his new stance. All because he got too used to playing the shot in a certain way and to improve he had to change the habit. It is the habit or the culture of its workforce which is the most difficult part to change in any organization… to first break the habit and then reassemble in a new way.

Boom Boom...

The retail industry is booming with increasing number of international brands coming into the country, not that the national brands are doing badly, and the best part is they are looking at manufacturing locally.The critical question is… does the local manufacturer understand the needs and wants of these International brands? Their lead times, inventory, logistics or the merchandise mix?The just concluded OGTC meet had a large contingent from Madura and a few participants from Wills Lifestyle, both of which are producing for their own brands. Sadly, they got little out of the event as the entire seminar was single-mindedly addressing manufacturing needs specific to exports…If we compare the supply chain of any international brand who sources globally, the situation is not comparable to that of National and International brands that are sourcing locally…The manufacturing sector is shying away from best practices, the isolated efforts bringing results in bits and pieces to limited few. There is confusion everywhere and lack of knowledge, one is merely trying to ape another without knowing what is right for whom, leading to a situation what American automobile sector faced while trying to copy Japanese concepts. I am sure that the OGTC has many members who would wish to work for domestic brands to cover up their lean periods or may also wish to launch their own brands in the future… Maybe it is time now to widen the scope of the event.One thing both the international and domestic players agree upon is that it is people… people and again people who are engineers of growth. They are drivers of systems in any organization. Sessions on Lean implementation, Green is lean, Training the trainer, Lean productivity… all had one common theme, it’s people who are the "differentiators" and rightly put, it was also the theme of the seminar…A very well planned and extended seminar with amazing interest from the industry too, I take the opportunity to congratulate OGTC on the show.

Common Games…

Why blame the garment industry for being unorganized, inefficient, unproductive and non compliant when it is one such industry that has to work with so many variables, some of which are low volumes, multi designs, ever reducing prices, fluctuating currencies, Government apathy and poor infrastructure support. But despite that, it has always been able to deliver on time while maintaining a reasonable quality. May be, at times, the goods get air freighted rather then shipped. Now compare it with the mess that has happened at the project Common‘Wealth’ Games… Can one expect any such big blunder by any of the garment exporters? Off time and poor quality…
I would say that Government should have placed a few garment exporters on the Commonwealth Games project planning board, and going by the reputation of managing crisis the stalwarts from the garment industry would have made sure the job gets done and delivered on time using their expert understanding of special technique called jugad, salvaging the situation and the country’s pride (some may argue that jugad is the reason for India’s downfall).

Turel Classic show, GTE and ITMA-Asia + CITME…

I have attended three fairs in the last month… Besides all of them showing a good visitor turnout and continuing with the discussions on offering sustainable products, what struck me was that all the machine manufacturers and suppliers presented their automated solutions. Probably, the enhanced business confidence followed by the improvement in order position has brightened the mood of the industry. Even the Government policies and schemes are working out to be a breather for large investors, making the cost of ownership lighter.
We can of course not neglect the impact of labour shortage, which is slowly but surely pushing manufacturers to opt for automation as an alternate… Another emphasis area for the technology providers was their claim to having machines with lowest running cost or operating cost. The operating cost is no doubt the critical factor in any buying decision and ideally it would include maintenance, support infrastructure and consumables, apart from energy and labour.
Among the operating cost, the investors are more concerned about cost of downtime (equivalent to loss of production), cost of repair (spare part and labour cost, which sometimes involves expert flying in from other countries), and cost of maintenance (Annual Maintenance Contracts (AMC) and machine engineers salary). For India, with poor spare part availability and lack of trained engineers, these factors are looming large during any investment decision…

ITMA-ASIA+CITME 2010 : Knitting on the focus

That the knit industry has a great future can be assessed from the fact that in the first quarter of 2010, exports of men’s cotton T-shirts alone has grown 10.37% in
value and 32.16% in volume from India while total US import in the same category has grown by 11.13% in value and 13.85% in volumes. The potential for growth is
immense as casual wear dominates trends globally.

While Tirupur and Ludhiana remain the major hubs in India, Delhi-NCR, particularly Noida, is fast developing as a knitting hub with many players investing in circular
knitting technology. The white paper on Bangalore brought out by Apparel Online also indicates that many big players in the city are also looking to add knitting
capacities. Even the upcoming Apparel Park in the Special Economic Zone in Visakhapatnam by Brandix has knitwear thrust to it.

I was recently in China to attend the ITMA ASIA-CITME 2010 show and knitting technology was in focus. Very much on expected lines the visitors came in large numbers,
much better than the turnout of last show, but still there was not anything to excite the participants…maybe the Chinese companies are holding back due to
uncertainties brought on by increasing wages, shortage of labour and un-pegging of the currency valuation.

With time, these shows have also become more of a manufacturer and supplier or agent meeting ground where participants consolidate or renew contracts, renegotiate
supplier cuts and understand the new and existing markets from the feedback of their agents. Some innovative companies also take this opportunity to understand the
market needs for future R&D.

Not many companies brought in any new technology this time; maybe they are thinking and waiting for ITMA-Barcelona. The companies that impressed me the most were
CIXING and PAILUNG both presented new solutions with CIXING entering into seamless in a major way and PAILUNG introducing its new flat knit line.

Managing Skills and Knowledge

Investing in upgrading knowledge and skill levels of people in the apparel industry has become a major agenda for both exporters and buyers. The growth of this industry is linked to how much progress can be made in better utilization of resources, both human and infrastructure for better productivity and efficiency, as the global apparel industry becomes highly competitive and price-driven.

In this scenario, skill development and knowledge management have become critical for sustainable growth. While skill development is more related to operator and supervisory level employees, knowledge management is a powerful tool to sharpen skills of middle and senior management. Information sharing of experiences and solutions to various problems that one faces in day-to-day operations is becoming a norm, with companies using different ways of communicating the same from IT-enabled modules to classroom training.

Even the StitchWorld magazine is a knowledge management tool, but with a much wider spread. It may not be company specific, as it caters to a wider segment of the industry, but it is certainly directional with a lot many case studies in different areas which one can mine for specific use. Many critical directions exemplified with case studies have been discussed in fine details. It is for the readers to apply the knowledge for optimal benefit.

We have taken our role as knowledge providers very seriously and in every issue the effort is to provide an insight into information that can be used. It gives us great satisfaction when industry tells us how useful the various articles have been and I have often heard that companies are tearing out relevant pages and handing over to production/management teams for implementation.

Deepak Mohindra
Editor-in-Chief

Skill Management

Few days back, I put on the radio and heard that one can acquire the services of a plumber, electrician through Employment Exchange and it got me thinking why not for a sewing operator? Skill management has always challenged industries and garment being a labour-intensive one, such challenges have always been feared yet faced.

What is skill management?
Skill management is the practice of understanding the skills required in any role and developing and deploying people to the roles matching their skill-set. Skill fitment is one of the key challenges faced by any organization.

To tackle skill management, any organization needs to clearly understand the skill level of its people. But this is highly challenging task considering our industry works predominantly with migratory and contract labour because of the seasonal nature of the business. Each day a production manager is faced with a task to identify the skill level of each operator and allocating operations accordingly.

The needs of our industry are very specific; performance is expected from shop floor employees (operators/helpers, etc.) and we have to determine the skill development programme through a matrix to monitor the level of individual skill profile and plan for continuous improvement.
Employment Exchange, which is actively marketing its services, registers the skill level of various artisans, then why not registration and deployment of sewing operators for the garment industry?