TITLE: REQUIREMENTS OF SUCCESSFUL ERP SOFTWARE FOR A TEXTILE

DYE-HOUSE MANAGEMENT.

Abstract: ERP is a modern concept of any business solution that integrated all the process
of a business’ functions including planning, production process, marketing, accounting and
supply chain management. Selecting ERP software for a textile dye-house management is
very important. As integrating all the functions of a dyeing industry are very complicated,
success of ERP software depends upon the capability of simplifying interrelated functions
and developing user-friendly interface of software manufacturer. This research study unveils
the actual requirements of successful ERP software suitable for dye-house management
and also analyzes the available software related to textile dye-house or textile
manufacturing in the market.

Key words: Dye-house, ERP, software, technology, textile.

Introduction:

Planning is the process of coping with uncertainty by formulating future course of action to
achieve specified result 3. Planning is the most important part of any project work. Only a
good planning can make success of any work. In the evolution of planning system MRP has
played a substantial role in the manufacturing organisation. MRP is an expansive
computerized system used in an organisation to plan and control the materials and
resources needed for the production of goods.5 It has two supplementary components MRP-
I (Materials requirement planning) and MRP-II (manufacturing resource planning). The latest
concept is enterprise resource planning (ERP) that includes planning of all resources of an
enterprise related to production and non production such as financial, marketing and human
resource management. . Another terminology is also available – money resource, planning
(MRP-III) but it is not alternative of ERP.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the latest technique of planning used to describe a
broad set of activities supported by multimode application software that helps a
manufacturer or other business executive to manage the important functions of his
business. It facilitated company wide integrated information system covering all functional
areas.

Importance of ERP software for dyehouse management:

Dyeing industry is one of the important areas of textile sector, which is very complicated and
need very careful planning for reducing cost and waste. A lot of waste comes from dyeing
industry that definitely increases the price of fabric. Textile is a labour intensive industry and
many workers work here who are not well educated or trained. To avoid human error
automated processing and information system is very important. Dyehouse work starts from
getting an order and finishes by delivering dyed fabric to buyer. So, after getting the order
from the buyer a dyehouse management needs to manage a lot of series of works both
technical and general such as swatch / sample making and getting approval from buyer,
materials procurement, capacity planning, production planning and control, quality
management, inventory management, total supply chain management and financial
management, which need integrated planning of all resources.

Advantages of ERP:

Searching any report manually or generating a report needs a lot of time, sometimes several
hours, that make obstacle for making a decision. Whether with the help of ERP solution a
report can be found within a second and decision can be made within very short time which
helps company to avoid loss of time and money. Production planning enhances the capacity
utilization, process control helps to reduce waste, re-dyeing and reworks, quality
management module helps to find out the real weakness and new process development,
inventory can be managed within minimum materials cost and without stock-out situation,
MIS helps management to take quick decision and increases customer satisfaction. Agrees
Hardev B. Chaturvedi, chairman of the Shamken Group and president of the Northern India
Textile Mills Association (Nitma) describes the need and advantages of ERP this way: "The
fit will get fitter if companies switch to modern technology, select niche products and put
modern management systems such as ERP in place." 7

Available software related to dyehouse management:

There are few software developer who developed dyehouse management ERP software.
Maximum of them have developed software either colour matching or controlling /
monitoring the production machineries. Datacolor has developed many software which are
related to dyeing.8 But maximum of those are related to colour matching, design control and
process control. They don’t have any software that integrated all functions of dye-house
management. Accounting and supply chain management modules are not available in
Datacolor software. Texpert® DHM ERP solutions provided a wide range of modules to
support all areas of technical, commercial, financial and supply chain management and
executives’ decision making except processing machines’ and colour matching integration. 6
Datatex – TIM is mainly based on dyehouse machines controlling software that will helpful to
monitoring all steps of production.9 THEN Machineries Company has also such kind of
software that has additional modules for order management.10

Factors that influence the failure of ERP software:

Although ERP has a lot of benefit it may be failure due to wrong selection of modules.
Selecting and implementing a new ERP system and the process changes that go with it are
complex tasks.4 Every module has a significant relation with others and its functionality
increase dramatically when it integrates with proper ones. Only a production planning
module is useless or less effective without dyes-chemicals inventory modules and grey
fabric inventory modules. Because production planning is not only for capacity utilization of
all processing machines but also planning for trouble free production of the company which
also depend upon the availability of raw materials. If we think little bit more deeply, it needs
also the information of market demand of a product or urgency of buyers’ demand. So,
effective production planning needs a lot of other information from other department.
Moreover, every module consists of many functions. So, user must be well known with all
functions. Functions should be well oriented with objectives and goals of organization.
Unnecessary functions, which are not compliance with company objectives, may make
confusion and complexity to user and desired outcomes can’t be obtained. Wrong selection
of modules causes failure of ERP.

One of the main reasons of failure of ERP implementation is the lack of technology transfer.
Many ERP suppliers don’t train the end user properly. As a result ERP users deprive of the
effective performance of the software. After buying the software many companies could not
use it properly. The owners don’t have any return on investment and they feel that ERP is
not a suitable solution for their enterprise. They think invest in high technology is waste of
money. 2

Moreover, complex interface make confusion when the operator entry the data. As a result
incorrect data and information may hamper production and decision making process of the
company. Weak security system can help to data manipulation or loss of data. Especially if
the software is web-based strong security system is needed to protect the internet hacker.
Programming language may obstacle for further development, modification or integration
with other software if the latest language is not used.

Requirements of successful ERP software:

Although ERP is very important and useful for modern management, Successful
implementation is very complicated. Many companies failed to get benefit from ERP.
Analyzing the dyehouse functions and management related works and the information
reports that needed to different level of workers and executives, it is concluded that the
following factors are very important for success of ERP software.

• Customization:

Software should be developed according to the need of organization and it should

have opportunity to customize. Many software vendors want implements their same
software to all customers that makes complexity and unnecessary burden to the
users. Modules don’t comply with company need destroy the actual objectives of
implementing ERP system. Reporting system can be re-arranged according to the
organization’s requirement and new reports can be added at any point of time.

• Required modules and their functions:

An ERP software for dyehouse management needs the following modules and
capable to integrate all the modules and generate consolidate reports as well as
individual reports as required. The following functional modules with reports are very
important for dyehouse management

1. MIS Module (for Top Level Management):

Every Dye-House manager or higher executives need the integrated report to

understand the whole situation for industry at a glance. In this modules CEO can find
out everything about production, inventory, chemicals cost and order summary.
Following reports are important for a successful ERP.

• Daily production and stock report: opening stock of fabric, incoming stock,
production (dyeing) of the day, delivery and finished fabric stock at a glance.
• Order summary: just input the order number and it will generate the details
report of the order. The master quantity, total incoming grey stock, required grey
fabric, batch position in dyeing, finishing, delivery, required grey fabric, required
dyed fabric to fulfil the order.

• Chemical inventory summary: opening stock of chemicals, incoming stock

(purchase), use in dyeing-finishing of the day and the balance position. It is also
desirable to get only purchase or use of dyes-chemicals report for daily, weekly,
monthly, yearly or any time-period. Basis.

2. Order Management:

The work of a Dye-House starts from getting an order and finished by delivering dyed
fabric to buyer. Order management modules will manage all orders and its present
status automatically. The main functions are as follows:

• Master order details: it needs to keep all information of a order details including
buyer information, quantity according to colour, size and relative quantity, and
status of order.

• Batch management system: according to machine capacity and ratio of size

and colour will be made and all batches information will be kept automatically
and report will be generated according to demand. Such as, it is desirable to find
out the report of how many batches are in dyeing, or in grey status or already
delivered for a specific date, or week or month or any time period or according to
colour or, if there is multi-order, according order number or any single batch
status.

• Fabric inventory: status of total grey fabric, incoming stock of a specific order
and its grey stock, dyed fabric stock, delivered quantity. You can also find out the
consolidated status of all order at a time.

3. Production planning and management:

This module is production related and it includes swatch making and approval,
dyeing recipe, requisition generation, and real dyes-chemicals use records. It also
help marketing/ directors/ managers to calculate the cost of a certain colour when
they take order or negotiate price to customers.
Production planning and management modules integrated all the machines
according to their capacity and availability. All the stages of a production process will
be recorded.
• Lab Management: all recipes of swatches sent for approval and approved
swatches will be stored. Recipe can be retrieved and used directly for dyeing.

• Recipe formulation: recipe can be set for future use. Such as, fix up a recipe for
pre-treatment and it will come automatically when calculate the chemicals for
pre-treatment of a specific batch. Modification of recipe should be available
anytime according to requirement.
• Requisition slip for dyes-chemicals: before dyeing operator needs requisition
slip for receiving dyes and chemicals from inventory/ store. There are auto
function and manual function (for altering any recipe) for calculating chemicals
consumption. All recipes will be stored in a database and can check any time for
further information. It is easy to find out in future by batch number, order number,
requisition number, date product etc.

• Production Planning: planning the batches according to machine capacity and

performance and availability of machines. As a consequence of dyeing with
minimum machine wash can be obtained.

• Actual production monitoring: software should have the facilities to integrate

with all machines through EDI system so that dyeing manager can monitor all the
machines and find out the stages of dyeing, finishing and other intermediate
process. It is easy to take corrective action during dyeing or finishing which will
reduce the rework and save time, raw materials misuse and improve customer
satisfaction. Helpful to achieve target production.

• Production calculation: report of total production by date, any time period,

order number, batch number, machine number etc. should be generated.

• Real cost calculation: Sometimes additional dyes/ chemical may need for
matching a required shade. Here real cost of any batch will be calculated. This
may be different from requisition that was submitted earlier. Real cost according
to batch, colour or order can be found.

• Re-dyeing calculation: Performance evaluation of machine and worker is very

important. An ideal software should have the opportunity to find out the number
of re-dyeing batch, respective dyes-chemicals, RFT%, total re-dyeing cost of a
order, or colour shade or in a specific date. It is better if there is option to find out
COQ( cost of quality),

4. Inventory Management (Dyes and Chemicals):

This module includes all information of dyes and chemicals. The major functions
are as follows:
• Inventory replenishment: classification of product group and their individual
code and name are very important for inventory management. Products are
identified through 3-tier system according to their uses period during dyeing
works (pre-treatment, dyeing, finishing), their functionality (detergent, anti-
creasing etc) and real names (Texpert Superstab EL). Present inventory status
and replenishment warning will generate automatically. Product will be shown
with purchase date and quantity.

• Procurement/ Purchase: Supplier database will help to find out the product
(searching through supplier name for their available products) or supplier
(searching through product’s name for supplier). Purchase date, quantity, price,
supplier details information, payment mode etc. will be recorded. Report will
generate according to date, time period, product name, supplier, purchased by or
approved by etc.
• Use: All calculation of dyes-chemical uses according to batch, colour and order.
Daily uses of dyes and chemicals and their respective cost will calculate
automatically. So, dyes-chemicals cost of any batch, or colour, or order, or
according to date or period anytime can be found.

5. Quality Management:

Quality Management module is very essential to analyze the real weakness of any
process, dyes-chemicals, machine defects or / and human being. To find out a new
process or quality improvement program or dyeing a problematic shade previous
data can play a significant role. Main features and reports of this module are as
follows:

• Quality report: this report will keep all the records of all batches of quality rating
of GSM, shrinkage, and colour fastness to washing, perspiration, light and
crocking and the test methods such as ISO, AATCC. Pass- fail report and their
reasons will be find out from this report. This will help to take corrective action for
present batches and process development for future.

• No. of defective batch: total number of defective batches of any colour-shade,

order, day, week, month or any time period should be shown in the report. Even
it is possible to find out the defective batch according to machine number or
according to worker who work for that batch. So, performance of man or machine
or materials can be easily found out.

6. Maintenance Management:

• Planning and scheduling: there should be scope for making plan for preventive
or routine maintenance of all machineries. Maintenance manager automatically
informed from this program about his daily works and materials requisition
invoice for daily use will be generated automatically.

• Machine’s real history analysis: it will keep all the documents of real
maintenance with all resources used. And it will show the real analysis of all
machineries, their normal maintenance frequency and break down maintenance
and the reason of break down so that manager can analysis the real cause
behind this.
• Inventory for maintenance: all items of maintenance will be recorded here. It is
easy to find out any items and their quantity, position in self. This module will
calculate safety stock and remind/ alarm for need of purchasing a specific item.

• Purchase: all purchased data with cost and supplier details will be recorded
here. For a specific product supplier’s name, address, their previous performance
and their offered price can be found easily.

• Items use: uses of all items will be recorded here and real cost per machine or
all machines in any time-period will be found within a moment.

7. Human Resource Management:

This module consists of almost everything of Human resource management. It
manages all the Human Resource Functions include-

• HRIS ( Human resource information system): HRIS consists of HR planning

and analysis( organization chart, staffing projection, skill inventories, turnover
analysis, absenteeism analysis and job description tracking), legal issues related
to HR such as equal employment opportunities, Staffing( recruiting sources,
application tracking, promotion, relocation and job offer refusal analysis), HR
development( employment training profiles, training need assessments, career
interest and experience), compensation and befit ( pay structures, salary costing,
flexible benefit), health, safety and security( safety training, accident record),
employment and labour relation( union negotiation costing, employee work
history, attitude survey result).1

• Payroll management: attendance with automated barcode system,

absenteeism, automatic salary calculation with real overtime, incentive, bonus or
/and any deduction of fine for late presence or any other reason, total salary of
the month, salary sheet etc.

8. Marketing Management Module:

• Marketing research information: Marketing information such as sales

forecasting, capacity booking, cost assumption for a specific order, and
marketing performance will be included in this module.

• Quick cost assumption: for taking an order in dyehouse executives need to

calculate the cost and this module should have a pre-built dye-calculator. Just
put the dyes percentage and salt and soda quantity total cost per kg or any
quantity will be come automatically. By this dye-calculator executives can find
out the lowest cost for a particular colour shade.

9. Financial management (Integrated full accounting software):

The Accounting module should be integrated with related modules so that all
required financial information will be calculated automatically. It should be integrated
with purchase modules, inventory modules, dyeing modules and daily expenses
modules. Followings are the important parts of this module.

• General Ledger: to entry all daily expenses and incomes a general ledger must
be included which provides the user with the ability to maintain and report
quantitative information about the financial status and activities of an
organization. Financial report such as balance sheet, income statement and
other necessary reports will generate automatically.

• Accounts Receivable: this part provides for the recording and reporting of
customer account activity and status. The overall objectives of the account
receivable system are to manage customer account activity in a convenient.
 • Accounts Payable: the accounts payable system provides for the recording and
reporting of supplier account activity and status.

• Fixed Asset Management: this part is needed to keep all the information of
assets and their depreciation which need to calculate overhead of the company.

• Cost management: this module will help to find out raw materials cost, all types
of over head and total cost according to batch, order, colour, date or any time
period.

10. Supply Chain management :

A supply chain module is needed which can tracking all of the stages of
procurement, customer order status such as L/c, Shipment, delivery etc.

• User Friendly interface:

Graphical and attractive interface can avoid monotonous feelings of data entry
operator. Data entry and report generation modules should be grouped separately
and headline must be named clearly understandable. Moreover interface design
should be so good tactical that can avoid the human errors. There should be option
to send the reports to any person via internet without signing out from this software.
Only interface with perfect sequence helps the user to understand the software with
minimum training.

• Multi-user security system:

Should have strong security system for multi-level users to enter in software function
and there should not have any scope of data manipulation. One can use only one’s
permitted area, can’t see others information and after entering a data operator/user
can’t change it. Only administrator can change data when it is necessary for any
correction. Software should be designed with Client/Server technology. All
databases will be stored in a separate server–computer other than users’ computers.

• Networking Capability:

Software must be suitable for networking trough LAN ( Local Area Network) and
WAN ( Wide Area Network). Same software and modules can be used in all the
required workstation through LAN. It is expected that an ERP will be web based so
that top level executives can use its information for decision making from anywhere
in the world during his stay out of office.

• Programming language:

Language should to be up-to-date so that it can integrated easily with other software
It must be upgradeable according to needs of organization or demand of
technological change. Although choice of language depends upon the expertness of
software developer, Microsoft Visual Basic.Net, Visual C # .Net, ASP.Net, Oracle
and SQL Server integration are advisable.
 • Training and after sales-service:

Training and after sales service are very important for a successful use of ERP
software. Any kind of mishandles or hardware problem may corrupt the software. So,
end user need a good training and support from software vendor.

References:

1. Aswathappa, K.(2003), Human Resource and Personnel Management( 3rd Edition), Tata
McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New Delhi, India.
2. Barmma, H. N. ( 2005), “ Technology Transfer In The Textile Sector And Sustainable
Development Of Bangladesh” Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on the
“Management Of The Technological Changes” , Chania , Greece, August 19-20, 2005.
3. Kreitner, Robert (1999), Management ( 7th Edition), Houghton Mifflin company, USA.
4. O.T. Celikkanat & C. Candan (2005.), “ ERP Investment Decision Process For Medium Scale
Textile Mills”, Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on the “Management Of The
Technological Changes” , Chania , Greece, August 19-20, 2005.
5. T.C.E. Cheng & S. Podolsky (1993), Just-in-Time Manufacturing ( 1st Edition), Chaman and
Hall, London, UK.
6. www.brinntex.com
7. www.businessworldindia.com/archive/990915/cover.htm
8. www.datacolor.com
9. www.datatex-tim.com/uk/product/tim_dyehouse.htm
10. www.then.de/en/products/dyehousenetworks/tds_functions.html