Cellular Manufacturing and Teamwork Concepts in Garment Manufacturing

Abstract

Typical layout of a garment manufacturing line includes on average about 30 machines arranged in a straight line configuration. Normally one skilled operator works on one machine and semi skilled operators are employed at some machines to help the skilled operator. This arrangement hinders work sharing and team work, as no communication is possible between operators in this long line. Work sharing in manufacturing cells and teamwork concepts are indispensible in lean manufacturing environments. Further, balancing of lines for one-piece-flow or near one-piece-flow is only possible with a large balancing loss or impossible due to large variations between cycle times of operations. The new layout proposed in this research facilitates work sharing and team working concepts and proved dramatic improvement when implemented. An algorithm to balance the cell based on the garment type and the skill matrix of operators too is proposed.