CASE STUTY:

BANGALORE GARMENT
EXPORTS LIMITED

ITM VILE PARLE BRANCH

NAME : ABHISHEK T. KOKATE
BATCH: SMBA 30

BANGALORE GARMENT EXPORTS

LIMITED
INTRODUCTION :
Garments are a labour intensive sector and contribute to a countrys
industrialization efforts by helping diversification from resource
based exports. In the past, countries such as Japan reaped the
benefits of industrialization by exporting garments. Today, global
exports in garments are dominated by countries like China, while
Bangladesh and Vietnam have also emerged as important players.
The garment industry provides employment to several thousand
people, and is an important foreign exchange earner for many
countries. For India too, the textiles and garment industry is
important since it is the second largest employer (agriculture is the
largest) and also contributes significantly to exports. In 2013, global
textiles exports were worth US$ 772 billion, of which Indias share
was 5.2 percent. Indias textile and apparel exports amounted to
US$ 40.2 billion in 2013, in which the share of textiles was 57
percent, while the share of apparel was about 43 percent. Apparel
exports in 2013 from India were US$ 17 billion, registering an
impressive increase of 22 percent over the previous year (WTO,
2013).
The textile industry contributes about 14 per cent of the total
industrial production in India, 4 per cent to the GDP and 13 per cent
of the total export earnings.
The textile and apparel value chain is organised around five main
segments (Pickles, 2012): raw material inputs (which includes
cotton, wool, silk for natural fibres, as well as oil and natural gas for
synthetic fibres), textiles (natural fibre based or synthetic fibre
based), apparel manufacture, intermediaries (brand name, overseas
buying offices, and trading companies), marketing and retail. In this
paper, we focus on the process of apparel manufacture which has
four main stages of production, that is, design, cutting, sewing, and
embellishment.

BACKGROUND OF BANGALORE GARMENT EXPORTS

LIMITED :
BANGALORE GARMENT EXPORTS LIMITED (BGEL) is a garments
manufacturer in Bangalore primarily engaged in the manufacture of
gents shirts against specific client orders. The garment sector is a
competitive one and competing merely on price is an unsustainable
strategy in the long run. The company has been in operation for the
last 12years and has earned a reputation for their delivery reliability
and cost.
OPERATING UNIT
BEGL has both manual and mechanized operations for shirt making.
The current capacity is for a daily production of 6500 shirts. While
cutting and basic stitching are done using high-speed machines,
there are portions of shirt-making that involves skilled labour in
addition to the machines. In all, there are 65 machines and of there
are 12 cutting machines, the rest being stitching machines. BGEL
employee over 400 people of these, 290 are engaged in production.
The production workers are functionally organized into four section
laying and cutting of cloth, body stitching, making slacks and
attaching it to the body of the shirt, and finally attaching the collar
to the shirt, after this, it goes to the quality control department for
final checking and QC clearance. After QC department for final

checking and QC clearance. After QC clearance it is send for

packaging and dispatch. The production flows in this sequence, and
each section a number of production workers in order to meet the
daily demand.
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There are separate sections for routine, preventive, and breakdown

maintenance of the machines, quality control and production
planning. All these sections, as well as the production sections have
supervisions who are responsible for output and performance of the
units. At the beginning of each shift the production supervisor in the
section assigns jobs to each worker based on the daily requirement.
The production workers receive incentive pay on a piece rate
basis, once they exceed the normal production in shift.

ISSUES / PROBELMS FACEBYBANGALORE GARMENT

EXPORTS LIMITED :
BGEL has not been able to establish a good quality system. While
they take care of the customer requirements through stringent
inspection standards. They end up with a much higher proportion of
rejects (seconds) than the industry average in the process.
The basic reasons for poor quality for finished products are as follow:
Workforce Availability & Skillset:

 Absenteeism has been seen as one of the regular issue. It

might be because of any of the followingreason
oIneffective or tiring working position
oUnhygienic working conditions
oUndefined leave policy
Skill required for operation needs be developed by proper
training. Improper or lack of training leadto:
oReduction in production speed
oDamage to machines
oDelay in communication
oHigh chances or miss-communication or miss-coordination
Garment Specifications:
Specification sheets, which are meant to improve the
communication between design andproduction teams
and to clarify product requirements to the workers (so
that costly errors could beprevented), are not able to
serve their purpose.
Currently there are no training program for workers (short
internal training or instruction session onusing and
understanding specification sheet)
Inability of workers to understand specification in some
of the cases. This could be because:
Lack of training for newly hired worker
Usage of non-standard format for specification definition.
Machines Operations and Maintenance:
Currently there is no proper provision for production
level worker training; it leads to mishandlingof
machines especially by newly hired workers or reassigned
workers.
Scheduled maintenance plan at regular interval is
missing.
No provision for performance related incentives for
maintenance workers.
Coordination Challenge:
Management-Production: Changes in schedules are not
getting communicated from management toproduction
level.

 Technical Design Team-Production Supervisor-worker:

Changes done in specification by technicalteam are not
getting transferred to workers involved in the production.
Production-quality: Quality standards required by QC
team is not shared with production team,workers do not
know/understand what quality is expected from them.

FINDING :
India is:
o The largest producer of jute in the world
o The second largest producer of silk
o The third largest in cotton and second largest in cellulosic
fibres
o The fifth largest in synthetic fibres / yarn
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Textile Sector:
The Indian textile industry has inherent strengths in terms of rich
legacy of
textile production, strong multi-fibre raw material base, large and
expanding
production capacities, very low import intensity, vast pool of skilled
workers and
technical and managerial personnel, flexible production systems,
large and
expanding domestic market, dynamic and vibrant entrepreneurship,
etc. However,these strengths have been diluted to a great extent
due to severe disadvantagessuffered by the industry in certain other
areas affecting its productivity, quality andcost competitiveness.
Such factors are technological obsolescence, structuralanomalies,
poor productivity of labour and machine, lopsided fiscal
policies,multiplicity of taxes and levies, high cost of capital,
redundant and outdatedcontrols/regulations, restrictive labour and
industrial laws, lack of aggressivemarketing, poor perception of
Indian products abroad, procedural problems inexporting, poor
infrastructure relating to transport, communication and banking,high
power tariff, etc.

KEY PLAYER

Aditya Birla Nuvo Brands

Esprit
Peter England
Allen Solley
Van Heusen
Louis Philippe

Raymond Brands
Raymond Finely Crafted Garments
Manzoni
Park Avenue
Park Avenue Woman
ColorPlus
ColorPlus Woman
Parx
Notting Hill
Zapp!

Koutons Brands:
Koutons Menswear
Charlie Outlaw
Les Femme
Koutons Junior

ArvindMillss Brands

Flying Machine
Newport
Ruf&Tuf
Excalibur
Arrow
Lee

Wills Lifestyle
John Players
Miss Players
Club Wills

ALTERNATIVES FOR ISSUE :

Workforce Availability & Skillset :
Absenteeism has been seen as one of the regular issue. No
relevant action is taken to control it. Root cause analysis for
the same needs to be done since it might be because of any of
the following reason
Ineffective or tiring working position Work method study
and motion study needs to done to improve it
Unhygienic working condition, if there, should be cleaned
immediately.
Undefined leave policy BGEL needs to define the strict
leave policy with a proper worker back up plan
Skill required for operation needs be developed by proper
multi-aspect training:
Knowledge about information flow between different
interfaces like QC, maintenance department, machine
repairing workshop and raw material supply department
Knowledge about production flow for items

 Knowledge about specification understanding

Basic operation knowledge
Machine operation knowledge
Garment Specifications:
Specification is the critical thread which connects technical
design team, production team and the quality control (QC)
team. Therefore following steps need to be taken in sequential
order
Since all three parties are stake holders,
representatives from all of them should be involved in
final stage of specification designing so that production
and quality representative have complete knowledge of
final product to be produced, this can be done by
technical design team giving demo of sample product to
other two teams.
Production representatives/supervisors should give a
small description of new specification to the production
worker; it should be done in small training groups so that
workers could easily focus and understand.
Once training is done, copies of specification should be
made available to all the workers(production & inspection
line) so that they could understand and refer it whenever
required.
The technical design department and the quality control
department must be involved inimplementation of
specification sheet at the production level. This step
should be implemented in coordination with 1st line
inspection plan of the QC team. Once all the
adjustments are done inproduction setup and written
specification (corrected), production team can take over
the control.
Machine Operations and Maintenance:
Provision for production level worker training, it will
reduce:
oReduce mishandling of machines
oReduce machine setup time
oReduce overall machine breakdown time.

 Provision for extra backup machines, these machines

can be bought on the basis of machinebreakdown data
collected during previous years. It will help in meeting the
production level in those cases where machine is going
through a serious damage and high repair time.
Maintenance/Repair supervisors should be trained
properly because all quality check forrepaired/maintained
machines needs to be done by them. Strict checklist for the
quality check for repaired/maintained should be in place.
Proper plan to carry out machine Scheduled maintenance
at regular interval is required. This can be done by preparing
and displaying machine-maintenance chart in the work area
so that responsible worker and QC personnel could keep
regular check.
Incentives for maintenance workers. It is important to
keep them motivated to meet theproduction capacity of
the machines. Incentive plan for the maintenance workers
should be linked to factor like (run time/breakdown time),
such that more the breakdown, lesser the incentive.

Coordination:
Coordination has to be managed specially between different
interfaces or departments. In BGEL,coordination or
communication issues which cropped between different
departments can be managedas follows:
Schedule Sharing (Management-Production): Schedule
should be displayed in graphical format (Gantt chart) on the
white boards across the production and planning unit. Any
changes done in schedule should be reflected in all the charts
with a separate color along with a descriptor note so that it
could be easily detected by supervisors and workers
Communication of changes done in specification
(Technical Design Team-Production worker)All the changes
done by technical design team should be communicated to
supervisors in a written form with changes marked clearly.
Supervisor then can call short, group meetings to discuss the
changes followed by distribution of new specifications with the
marked changes.

 Knowledge about quality standards (Production-QC)Critical

quality parameters should be explicitly shared with the
supervisors. These parametersshould also be made part of
specification document so that everybody knows in advance.

PERSONAL RECOMENDATION :
Lower priority and time intensive activities will be taken up under
the long term strategy; these wilmainly include material availability,
machine replacement or upgradation and development ofknowledge
sharing culture.
(I) Material Availability
Raw material supply for strategic items such as cloth, button,
threads etc is not ensured in current setupsince one such instance of
shortage happened in period of 10 days. Successful supply chain
performanceis based on a high level of trust and robust partnership
strategies.
(II) Machine Replacement/Upgradation
Older machines should be timely upgraded or replaced. This activity
should be done in phased mannersince it involves high purchase
and setup cost (loss in production due to wastage of time). This
activityshall help in reducing defect and the breakdown time since
new machines have low breakdown time.
(III) Knowledge Sharing Culture
Lack of knowledge leads to re-occurrence of similar issues in
different parts of organization thereforeimportant information must
be shared within and among different departments technical,
productionand quality control.
Line supervisors should share experiences with each other and
the technical department.
Any recurring errors should be analyzed by the respective
supervisors and distributed to the otherlines and departments
immediately, once a problem (and its solution) is identified.
The technical department should provide much more detailed
measurements and descriptions ofthe production processes,
highlighting any points that are critical to quality, for line
supervisors andworkers
(IV) Quality Check

BGEL should go for implementation of formal testing and inspection

plan (TIP), it can be implemented in multi-layered approach so that
defects could be found early, thus reducing the amount of rework
and ensuring quality end product. Four layers can be as follows:
Pre-Production Inspection: This is done before production
starts. It is done to crosscheck for final verification of Bulk
fabric and trims materials, styling cutting way, manufacturing
details and workmanship of the garment or pre-production
sample as per the customer requirement.
1st inline production inspection: This inspection is done at
the start of production when first production output of
particular style of garments is inspected; to distinguish
possible discrepancies or variation and to do necessary
corrections in production process or specification. This type of
inspection is done at preliminary stage of manufacturing of a
style covering mainly style detail, general appearance,
workmanship, measurements, fabric quality, Trims and
components, Lot color, printing, embellishments and washing
quality.
2nd line Production Inspection: This inspection is done
during production to ensure initial discrepancies have been
corrected and rectified. This inspection is a follow-up of the 1st
inline production inspection and is generally carried out after
1st line inspection when discrepancies have been detected at
that time.
Final Random Inspection: This inspection is carried out
when the production of the total quantity of an order or partial
delivery is completed. A sample lot will be selected from the
order and a percentage of the garments will be inspected, this
percentage usually being calculated on the basis of AQL
(Acceptable Quality level) sampling inspection system as
specified by the buyer.

LEARING / CONCLUSION :
BGEL has not been able to establish a good quality system. They
end up with a much higher proportion of rejects (seconds) than the
industry average in the process. The basic reasons for poor quality
for finished products is lack of Skill required for operation which
developed by proper training and lack of Provision for extra backup
machines & Maintenance/Repair supervisors. BGEL can improve

their stability of better quality by making few changes in their

organisation like creating goodstrategies for Successful supply
chain, older machines should be timely upgraded or replaced&
proper Quality Check.

REFERENCES :
http://finishingschool.pbworks.com/f/INDIAN+GARMENT+INDUSTRY.pdf
http://www.sibresearch.org/uploads/2/7/9/9/2799227/working_paper__dr_devaraja.pdf

http://www.iimb.ernet.in/~chandra/The%20Textile%20and%20Apparel
%20Industry.pdf
www.slideshare.net
http://www.india-opportunities.es/archivos/publicaciones/Textiles-and-ApparelJanuary-2016.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_industry
http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/8376/9/08_chapter%205.pdf
http://www.isid.ac.in/~epu/acegd2015/papers/SaonRay.pdf