The productivity of a clothing factory is directly related to the company’s revenue. It is capable of affecting both the basic expenses involved in a business and its profit.
And this becomes even more fundamental at this time of recovery in the textile sector in the country, which has positive prospects, as long as companies make adjustments to their production processes.
However, this positive scenario for clothing also opens the door to increased competition, making it necessary to have optimized, updated procedures in which the search is for increased efficiency while reducing costs.
At this point you may wonder, how to improve the productivity of a clothing factory? To help you with this task, we have prepared the following tips, check them out!
1.Plan
This is a very valuable tip for improving the productivity of a clothing factory. Planning is the starting point for leveraging any business. Disorganization ends up leading to a drop in production and, consequently, losses. Therefore, showing the people you work with that there is a plan in place can help maintain good productivity.
To avoid imbalances, rework, and production bottlenecks, make sure that all stages, from raw material procurement to logistics, follow an organized and well-structured schedule.
This practice also allows you to use the financial resources of the garment factory in the best possible way since with planning, it’s possible to predict expenses, costs, and even future losses, as well as to delegate tasks to employees in an optimized manner.
2.Train your work team to increase the productivity of a garment factory
One thing is certain: a professionally trained individual is more effective in performing their tasks within the garment factory than one who has not undergone any training.
Increasingly, new technologies are being used on the factory floor, and to make the most of the workforce and continue carrying out daily tasks, training to handle these innovations is crucial, especially if the desired outcome is increased productivity, the main focus of new technologies.
Continuous training and qualification are also necessary in the scenario of cost reduction and increased production efficiency. Employees who are not aligned with machinery and industry processes are more likely to waste raw materials and financial resources. Furthermore, they won’t know how to deal with challenges and technologies, resulting in slower production lines.
3. Motivate your team
One of the secrets to improving factory productivity is to motivate the team. A study revealed that happier and motivated workers produce 12% more.
Thus, motivation and productivity go hand in hand, and there are many ways to motivate employees in a garment factory: offering bonuses to achieve goals, providing a good working environment, giving feedback to the staff, and conducting motivational lectures.
The work environment is where employees spend most of their time. Therefore, it should be a physically and mentally healthy place that promotes personal growth, as this affects the efficiency and engagement of the entire team, including administrative sectors, not just those on the production line.
4.Prioritize the quality of work materials
It is challenging to motivate professionals without proper working conditions, so as important as developing motivational actions is the quality of what is used to produce the garments.
For example, a low-quality sewing machine can end up causing many problems, requiring repairs, and even having the opposite effect of causing a drop in productivity.
Similarly, low-quality accessories, fabrics, and finishing materials can also cause problems and decrease productivity in garment production.
Therefore, providing employees with quality materials and machines to maintain productivity is advisable.
In addition to decreasing productivity, the quality of raw materials and equipment used also affects your image and competitiveness in the market. Poor-quality fabrics affect the durability and comfort of customers.
To enhance the productivity of a garment factory in this regard and improve its image, it is necessary to develop an efficient quality control process, from purchasing to handling materials and equipment.
+Have you read these?
- How to modernize quality control in garment manufacturing?
- Advanced manufacturing in the Textile Industry. Quality control in the era of Industry 4.0
- Why is standardization in textile production important?
5. Use technology to your advantage to improve the productivity of a clothing factory
Process automation and work supported by technological resources can generate very significant productivity gains for a clothing factory. Furthermore, it is impossible to talk about the productivity of a clothing factory without mentioning more efficient technologies and machinery.
These tools help to optimize and speed up your production processes and reduce levels of rework and time needed to complete various activities. To better understand the importance of this investment, we have separated the main benefits of innovations and automation for the productivity of a clothing factory. Understand.
Agility and efficiency and cost reduction
Obsolete machinery, manual processes, and the absence of data-driven management can directly contribute to low productivity, increased costs, and outdated competitiveness.
Technology plays a crucial role in achieving better results as it enables tasks to be performed more quickly, accurately, and with fewer resources. Moreover, older technologies require more expenses, mainly because they are extremely limited in functionality and require constant maintenance.
To illustrate how seemingly minor process improvements can make a difference, the company Objeto Brasil managed to reduce waste by R$ 15,000 through an investment in a sample washer.
Integration of sectors and information
In a textile industry, everything should function systematically, not in isolation. In other words, in a garment factory, everything is interconnected. The quality and efficiency of the purchasing department influence the production line, finance, logistics, and other departments, for example.
Therefore, one of the investments should be in software that integrates information and data, ensuring that all processes are organized and aligned with the results and needs of each department.
More efficient and advanced production lines
A concept that has gained significant traction in the industrial realm as the trend for factories is Advanced Manufacturing. This involves the integration of advancements in computing systems and industrial automation, particularly concerning the equipment used. .
This transformation aims to make the textile industry smarter, more efficient, and increase the productivity of garment factories. To achieve this, investments need to be made in high-performance machinery that enables standardization and streamlining of processes.
However, as mentioned, a factory should operate in an integrated manner. Therefore, automation should be planned for all processes, not just some. After all, finishing is influenced by garment manufacturing and weaving, for example. Thus, innovation should be a business model for the entire garment factory.
6. Improve your factory layout
It may seem like an insignificant detail, but know that it is not. According to data from Sebrae, inadequate layout can result in approximately 30% of production time being wasted on material and product transportation.
Unnecessary or excessive movement of employees to carry out their tasks can compromise the productivity of a garment factory.
For example, when fabrics to be used are far from the machines or finishing materials are located at the other end, unnecessary time is consumed in transit and stops, which reduces the productivity of your team.
Therefore, it is essential to study the current layout of your factory and find ways to improve it to facilitate the productive routine of your employees. Ideally, the layout should be organized considering the type of machine or process.
For instance, finishing materials should be placed near finishing machines. Similarly, dyes, washers, and other dyeing components should be located close to the equipment used in this stage, and so on.
Do not forget to prioritize safety through signage, passage markings, and isolation in hazardous operations. Accidents affect various productivity aspects, such as costs, worker health, legal procedures, and productivity.
7.Create goals for employees
Depending on how the goals are set, they can be a reason for employee motivation. But care must be taken to ensure that the established goals are possible to be met, since poorly set goals can have the opposite effect and lead to a decrease in team morale as a result of not achieving them, which will lead to a drop in productivity and in the quality of its deliveries.
To improve the productivity of a clothing factory, it is necessary to keep in mind that production efficiency is the result of a set of innovative decisions that value technology, and not an isolated activity.
Want to know more about productivity in a clothing factory? Continue following our content channel and to optimize your production processes, discover Delta Equipamentos products. To the next!
Published on: 12/27/2018 and Updated on: 12/12/2019
