Engr. Kawsar Alam Sikder
Chief Executive Officer
ALIGANZ.COM
It is observed that all knitting factories cannot utilize their capitalized manufacturing capacity. Below is a case study of a renowned factory with 30 tons capacity per day:
| Reasons for non-utilization | % of losses time |
| Input not available | 31.2 |
| Sample preparation | 23.9 |
| Style change | 11.0 |
| Excess yarn breakage | 9.3 |
| Machine servicing | 8.7 |
| M/C adjustment for quality | 7.2 |
| Less air pressure | 6.5 |
| Electrical breakdown | 1.5 |
| Operator not available | 0.8 |
31.2% of unutilized due to unavailability of orders or inputs whereas 68.8 % of unutilized due to operational inefficiency. Today I will try to elaborate the ways to minimize the operational inefficiency.
Knitting personnel tries to increase the utilization of knitting machines by supervision without any modern tools and techniques. Manual supervision can be workable for small factories, it becomes tougher in large factories.
Many factories are equipped with more than 100 knitting machines. Production is interrupted for several reasons and responsible persons are also different. How long does the production really interrupt due to specific reasons? And what is the impact of the interruption on production? Actual figures are not visible to Managers or production heads.
Definitely, they observe the interruption and downtime, but when asking for the explanation to accused persons, accused persons try to prove, he did not take too many times and he has done his job within standard times.
All this asking or interrogation takes place after happening the incident, this is a postmortem type, and there is little chance to verify/justify the reasons. Most of the cases, Managers have to depend on their statements. Mostly, they try to show, there is no negligence at all even though the company is losing production as well as revenue.
If there is probation of keeping record without manual input of such breakdown and can be monitored at the time of incidents happening, definitely every concerned person will be more accountable. No way to show fake excuses, no way to transmit the responsibility.
We can bring the visibility of irresponsibility of concerns in day-light by real-time monitoring and make better accountability, which will lead to more productivity and profitability. Using the same resource as machines and men, the company will get more productivity, more profit. At present such technology is available.
Every knitting factory produces samples in bulk machines. This is unavoidable but we can make sample production faster and efficient by synchronizing the events/jobs related to sample production and we can expect production will increase at least 40 tons per month.
Frequently we have to change knitting programs, which means the rate of changing fabrication in knitting machines is too high. Most of the cases, the technical team does the adjustment of the machine by doing a trial and error method. It takes too much time, also varies from person to person. If we monitor and set the standard, we can increase at least 25 tons per month production.
Servicing also an essential part of knitting operations. It was observed, 8 to 12 hours consume to do servicing of machines. There is a lack of supervising and monitoring by production managers, it fully depends on the technical team. It was proved that if a related task can be synchronized and coordinated, production will be increased at least 10 tons per month.
Many cases, knitting production heads compromise in raw material quality, condition of the production floor, machine setting, etc., as a result, productivity also is hampered. Production can increase at least 5 tons per month by optimizing these parameters.
Each and every knitting factory, few machines remain idle due to either insufficient orders or delayed input feeding. The case study shows machines remain idle 31.2 % times due to these reasons. Production can be increased at least 20 tons per month by live monitoring.
Are all the machines running at an optimum speed at optimum efficiency or not- how many of us evaluate this, off course very few. Most of the production managers are happy to see the machines are running when they visit the production floor. Smart operators raise the RPM when high officials visit the production floor. If the production head can monitor the live monitoring of RPM in comparison with standard/optimum RPM continuously from his mobile/laptop/desktop, surely production can be increased at least 20 tons.
If a factory can make the visibility of the reasons/persons who are responsible for longer downtime of machines, it would be possible to make the concerns accountable. By adopting artificial intelligent software and hardware, it is possible to measure the loop falls/idle times/negligence etc. in real-time.
By real-time monitoring of the inefficient area, the process owner can measure and interpret the losses. It helps him to intervene to synchronize and coordinate the dependent elements resulting in 120 tons more production. That is equivalent revenue of BDT 15 lac from a 30 tons capacity factory.
