Elimination of non value

added activities in the cutting

section of apparel industry
Md. Mazedul Islam
Lecturer, Department of Textile Engineering, Daffodil International
University, Bangladesh.
mazed@daffodilvarsity.edu.bd
Adnan Maroof Khan
Lecturer, Department of Textile Engineering, Daffodil International
University, Bangladesh.
adnanmaroof@daffodilvarsity.edu.bd
Md. Foysal Rabby
Dept. of Apparel Manufacturing Engineering, Bangladesh University of
Textiles, Bangladesh.
<aside id="meta-482" class="entry-meta"><span class="author vcard">
Md. Mazedul Islam <br> Lecturer, Department of Textile Engineering,
Daffodil International University, Bangladesh.<br>
mazed@daffodilvarsity.edu.bd <br><br> Adnan Maroof Khan<br> Lecturer,
Department of Textile Engineering, Daffodil International University,
Bangladesh.<br> adnanmaroof@daffodilvarsity.edu.bd<br><br> Md.
Foysal Rabby<br> Dept. of Apparel Manufacturing Engineering,
Bangladesh University of Textiles, Bangladesh. </span><span
class="posted-in"> </aside> <img width="620" height="413"
src="http://www.textiletoday.com.bd/wpcontent/uploads/2015/02/Westcomb-Factory-fabric-cut-thumb-620x41373896.jpg" class="attachment-single_thumb wp-post-image"
alt="Westcomb-Factory-fabric-cut-thumb-620x413-73896" />

Issue January, 2013

Volume 06, Issue 01
Keywords: Costs, Elimination, Lead-time, Profitability, Wastages.
1. Introduction
Generally in an industry more focus is given on profit. Though there
are different costs involved in cost reduction internally spent by an
industry through finding wastages, preventing and correcting
defective work would result in huge savings [1]. Value added activities
focus on any activity that customer is willing to pay for. Non value
added activities describe that the customer does not consider as
adding value to his product (for example, waiting time,inspection time,
zigzag movement due to improper lay out, no proper planning,
improper machine use, sharing of working instruments, absence of
operators, workers fatigue etc.) [2]. One of the ways to reduce
wastages can be elimination of non-value added activities that can
result in reduction in time, cost, and lead time. Lead time means
duration /time required between first receipt of a customer order and
customer receipt of the product or service. It varies with the purpose
of analysis [4]. As it is known that time is money, if more time is
required in a product or service more money is involved. By reacting
quicker to make a product as per customer demand, the company
can invest less money and more savings. Therefore, a study was
carried out in a garment industry located at Mirpur, Dhaka,
Bangladesh named Opex and Sinha Textile Group [5] at cutting
section about the process flow to identify non-value added activities
so as to eliminate them for saving time, cost and improve internal
throughput time.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1 Brief Description of the cutting Room
The cutting department where we conducted this project at Opex &
Sinha Textile Group, [5] OGL unit, is a manually operated cutting unit.
It uses manual spreading technique and cutting. Cutting department
has straight knife and band knife. Band knife is used to cut small

components like moon patch, placket, sleeves etc. The capacity of

the cutting department is around 7500-9000 pieces per day. The
cutting department is divided into two parts one for spreading and
cutting of solids and other for stripes. For stripes and solids, both
spreading and cutting is done manually. The fabric that has to go for
washing is spread manually and cut into panels. Around 40-45
workers are engaged for the whole cutting floor consisting of five
cutting tables. The hierarchy of the cutting floor is as follows:
2.2 Material selection and process flow
Fabric consisting of six different styles to produce garments having
length x width of 10 m x 1.45 m to produce 700 nos. of garments in
each style were considered. Stop watch method was used to study
the time required in each steps of process involved in cutting and also
initial and final time was noted. Total time required for the process is
the sum of differences between initial and final time of each step
involved. The steps considered in the process are as follows:
3. Results & discussion
Table 1 show the total time taken for each garment to complete the
process of operation from fabric received in cutting till delivery and
the same table shows segregation of value added and non-value
added activities.
Table 1. Value added and non-value added activities time in
cutting section.
3.1 Factors causing delay and increase time of non value added
activities in the cutting department
Some factors causing delay and increasing the time of non value
added activities in the cutting department are [10] like-Waiting time,
negligence of operators, splicing, paper work, measuring length and
width of ply, roll changing, no proper identification, zigzag movement

due to improper lay out, no proper planning, improper machine use,

defect marks, sharing of working instruments, absence of operators,
workers fatigue, less experienced workers, poor machine
performance, due to excess humidity and temperature[11], fabric is
not segregated according to width or gsm of fabric. No accountability
in the department, no proper relaxation machine, there is more
relaxation allowances for worker which decreases overall on standard
time, no standard operation followed by operator, etc [12].
3.2 Probable cost savings after elimination of non-value added
activities
Table 2 shows the style-wise costs of value added and non-value
added activities in cutting section. As per the factory information, the
unit cost in cutting section was taken into consideration to calculate
the overall value added and non-value added activities cost and
consequent cost savings in ultimate factory expenditure. During the
experimental observation, total value added and non-value added
time were identified separately and costs related to each time also
calculated. Finally, cost savings for non-value added activities time in
terms of total time (both value added and non-value added time)
required to finish the job were calculated.
Table 2. Style-wise costs of value added and non-value added
activities in cutting section.
In Opex and Sinha Textile Group per day (8 hr shift) average costs in
cutting section is $ 150 i.e. Tk. 12,000. The above table indicates that
due to non value added activities about 872 min extra time is required
which could be saved from a total 4044 min time for which equivalent
cost is approximately Tk. 21800. So, from the above table data we
can calculate the average cost savings for the industry.
The average cost savings/min is Tk. 21800/ 4044 = Tk. 5.40
The average cost savings/hour is Tk.5.40 x 60 = Tk. 324.00
The average cost savings/day is Tk. 5.40 x 60 x 8 = Tk. 2592.00

The average cost savings/month is Tk. 5.40 x 60 x 8 x 26 = Tk.

67392.00
The average cost savings/year is Tk. 5.40 x 60 x 8 x 26 x 12 = Tk. 8,
08,704.00
So, if this figure is considered in terms of total factory economy then a
huge amount of factory expenditure could be saved easily that may
have an important impact on overall factory economy.
4. Recommendations for eliminating the non value added
activities
Some of the recommendations suggested to eliminate non value
added time are: proper production planning, minimum waiting time,
proper allocation of manpower is necessary, effective application of
industrial engineering, well trained operator, proper layout plan,
minimum rework, smooth running of cutting machine, sufficient
numbers of measurement tape can be provided for measuring layers,
pressure bar and stand for all spreading table should be provided,
stickers can be used for identification, manual counting is not
required, correct roll, shade variation, length, width of the fabric
should be issued by proper identification, CAD sheet and slip to be
same, books to note down production to be given to all panel
checkers as one common book is used, style and color-wise cut audit
parts need proper identification, humidity and temperature measuring
instruments should be available for smooth working, proper quality
checking, minimum inspection time, reduced zigzag movement etc
These recommendations were suggested to the cutting section.
5. Conclusion
The suggestive tools developed in this article cover a comprehensive
series of aspects in minimizing cost and time in the Cutting section of
apparel industries by ensuring quality production. It was observed
that time was saved and cost related to time was utilized properly
(reduced by eliminating non-value added activities).The study clearly
indicates that by eliminating non-value added activities in the cutting

section time as well as cost are saved and also improves internal
throughput time. So, wholehearted efforts from root level to top level
personnel are highly expected to reduce non value added activities in
the cutting section.
References:
[1] Kumar, S. A. (2008). Production and Operations Management.
Daryaganj, Delhi, India: New Age International, p. 217-220.
[2] http//www.online/clothingstudy.com
[3] http//www.viyellatexgroup.com
[4] Shahidul, M. I. and Syed Shazali, S. T. Dynamics of
manufacturing Productivity: Journal of Manufacturing Technology
Management Vol. 22 No. 5, 2011, p. 664-678
[5] http//www.opexgroup.com
[6] http//www.asiantextilejournal.com
[7] http//www.sepalgroup.com
[8] http//www.fiber2fashion.com
[9] Saroj Bala, Factors Influencing Costing of Woven Fabrics, The
Indian Textile Journal, June 2003
[10] Dr P Khanna: Work study, time and motion study, Dhanpat Rai
and Sons, New Delhi, (pp 21).
[11] Pojasek, Robert B. Five S: A Tool That Prepares an
Organization for Change. Environmental Quality Management
(Autumn 1999) 97-103.
[12] Productivity Development Team, Just-in-Time for Operators
(Portland, Oregon Productivity Press, 1998)

Abstract
Cost related to quality or wastage reductions have significant

effect on overall profit for any industry. Internal cost spent by a

company and savings made by reducing internal throughput time
or rework or any type of wastages are important for management
to keep the industry economically in good health. Keeping this in
mind an attempt has been made to study and eliminate waste
i.e., Non Value added (NVA) activities in cutting section so as to
save time and cost and reduce internal throughput time. Vendor
evaluation for proper supplier is also identified to reduce rework.
Results showed that considerable amount can be saved.
Introduction
Cost is an important factor in any industry as most of the
industries focus on more profit. Though, there are different costs
involved cost reduction internally spent by an industry by finding
wastage, preventing and correcting defective work would result in
huge savings. Value added (VA) activities focus on any activity
that customer is willing to pay for. Non Value added (NVA)
activities describes that the customer does not consider as
adding value to his product (For e.g. waiting, inspection etc.). One
of the ways to reduce wastages can be reduce/eliminate NVA that
can result in reduction in time, cost and lead time. Lead time
means Duration/Time required between first receipt of a
customer order and customer receipt of the product or service. It
varies with the purpose of analysis. As it is known that time is
money, if more time is required in a product or service more
money is involved. By reacting quicker to make a product as per
customer demand the company can invest less money and more
savings. Vendor evaluation for supplier performance is the
materials management divisions objective to maintain and
improve the quality of status of vendor base. Therefore a study
was carried out in a garment industry located at Bangalore
specifically at cutting section about the process flow to identify
NVA so as to eliminate them for saving time, cost and improve
internal throughput time (lead time) as well Vendor performance
was analyzed for cost savings and details have been presented in
this paper.
Materials and Methods
Fabrics consisting of 6 different styles to produce garments
having length X width of 6 m x 1.45 m to produce 220 nos. of

garments in each style were considered. Stop watch method used

to study the time required in each step of process involved in
cutting and initial and final time was noted. Total time required
for the process is sum of difference between initial and final time
of each step.
The steps considered in the process are as follows:
Fabric received in cutting from stores > spreading > Marker sheet
spreading > Cutting parts > Numbering > Shade and panel
Checking > Fusing > Bundling > Cut auditing
Value added and Non Value added an activity in each step
wherever found was identified for the above process for each
style and the time in minutes is noted. Data collected from the
industry for 3 months fabric rolls received in metres was used to
evaluate Suppliers performance.
Results and Discussion
Table 1 show the total time taken for each garment to complete the process
of operation from fabric received in cutting till cut audit operation and the
same Table shows segregation of value added and non value added
activities.
Table 1: Value and Non Value added activities in cutting section
Style No.

Time (min)
taken

Time (min)
VA activities

Time (min)
NVA activities

730

541

189

617

490

127

585

480

105

675

540

135

740

580

160

685

560

125

which are due to waiting, negligence of operators, no proper identification,

zigzag movement due to improper lay out, no standard operation followed
by operator etc.,
Some of the improvements required to reduce waiting are sufficient
numbers of measurement tape can be provided for measuring layers,
pressure bar and stand for all spreading table should be provided, stickers
can be used for identification, cutters show no. of plies and manual
counting is not required, Correct roll, shade, length, width of the fabric
should be issued by proper identification, CAD sheet and slip to be same,
proper allocation of manpower is necessary, books to note production to be
given to all panel checkers as one common book is used, the cut audit
parts needs proper identification style wise. These recommendations were
implemented in the cutting section. It was observed that time was saved
and cost related to time is utilized properly (reduced by eliminating NVA) as
shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Style, Cost Savings & NVA

The average cost savings/month: `43.82# x 25 x 26 = `28483

#Approx.cost/worker/month is 0.3125, (e.g. for style 1,189x0.3125= `59)

(avg. no. of lays/day = 25 and no. of working days=26)
Cost save/annum = ` 3, 41, 796
Figure 2 shows the vendor evaluation report based on supplier
performance. Acceptance and rejection of fabrics is done based 4-point
system inspection which is generally carried out in garment industry. It can
be observed that some of the companies are supplying (i.e., Raymond,
Auro textile etc) good quality of fabrics compared to other companies. This
indicates that rework on these fabrics are nil resulting in save of time and
cost.

Figure 2: Supplier v/s Fabric Rejection

-

See more at: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/industryarticle/5502/cost-savings-in-cutting-section-apparel-industry?

page=2#sthash.8N4x5eWy.dpuf
Conclusion

The study clearly indicates that by eliminating NVA activities in cutting

section time as well as cost are saved and also improves internal
throughput time. Vendors evaluation to identify proper supplier to get 0 %
rejection of fabrics is vital to save cost.
References:

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target="_blank">www.fibre2fashion.com
&sec=article&uinfo=<%=server.URLEncode(3275)%>"
target="_blank">www.asiantextilejournal.com
Saroj Bala, Factors influencing costing of woven fabrics, Indian Textile
Journal- June 2003
Dr. P. Khanna-work study, time and motion study (P.21)
- See more at: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/industryarticle/5502/cost-savings-in-cutting-section-apparel-industry?
page=3#sthash.0wo55O2r.dpuf