Report On MIS Usage In Production Management Department At Reliance Trends

Management Information System

A management information system (MIS) is a subset of the overall internal controls of
a business covering the application of people, documents, technologies, and
procedures by management accountants to solve business problems such as costing a
product, service or a business-wide strategy. Management information systems are
distinct from regular information systems in that they are used to analyze other
information systems applied in operational activities in the organization. Academically,
the term is commonly used to refer to the group of information management methods
tied to the automation or support of human decision making, e.g. Decision Support
Systems, Expert systems, and Executive information systems.
It is a planned system of the collecting, processing, storing and disseminating data in
the form of information needed to carry out the functions of management. In a way it is a
documented report of the activities those were planned and executed.

Need of MIS in Company

At the start, in businesses and other organizations, internal reporting was made
manually and only periodically, as a by-product of the accounting system and with some
additional statistics, and gave limited and delayed information on management
performance.
In their infancy, business computers were used for the practical business of computing
the payroll and keeping track of accounts payable and accounts receivable. As
applications were developed that provided managers with information about
sales, inventories, and other data that would help in managing the enterprise, now-a-
days MIS is used to handle and manage these kinds of applications.
Purpose of MIS in the Company
Its purpose in the company is:
• to manage the flow of information and data within the various departments of
the company.
• to provide a basis to analyse warning signals that can originate both
externally
• and internally.
• to automate routine operations thus avoiding human work in the processing
• tasks.
• to assist management in making routine decisions.
• to provide the information necessary to make non-routine decisions.
• to serve as a strategic weapon to gain competitive advantages.

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Company profile

With a vision to generate inclusive growth and prosperity for farmers, vendor partners,
small shopkeepers and consumers, Reliance Retail Limited (RRL), a subsidiary of
RIL, was set up to lead Reliance Group’s foray into organized retail.

With a 27% share of world GDP, retail is a significant contributor to overall economic
activity across the world. Of this, organized retailing contributes between 20% to 55% in
various developing markets. The Indian retail industry is pegged at $ 300 billion and
growing at over 13% per year. Of this, presently, organized retailing is about 5%. This is
expected to grow to 10% by 2011. RRL has embarked upon an implementation plan to
build state-of-the-art retail infrastructure in India, which includes a multi-format store
strategy of opening neighbourhood convenience stores, hypermarkets, specialty and
wholesale stores across India.

RRL launched its first store in November 2006 through its convenience store format
‘Reliance Fresh’. Since then RRL has rapidly grown to operate 590 stores across 13
states at the end of FY 2007-08. RRL launched its first ‘Reliance Digital’ store in April
2007 and its first and India’s largest hypermarket ‘Reliance Mart’ in Ahmedabad in
August 2007. This year, RRL has also launched its first few specialty stores for apparel
(Reliance Trends), footwear (Reliance Footprints), jewellery (Reliance Jewels), books,
music and other lifestyle products (Reliance Timeout), auto accessories and service
format (Reliance Autozone) and also an initiative in the health and wellness business
through ‘Reliance Wellness’. In each of these store formats, RRL is offering a unique set
of products and services at a value price point that has not been available so far to the
Indian consumer. Overall, RRL is well positioned to rapidly expand its existing network
of 590 stores which operate in 57 cities.

During the year, RRL also focused on building strong relationships in the agri-business
value chain and has commenced marketing fruits, vegetables and staples that the
company sources directly to wholesalers and institutional customers. RRL provides its
customers with high quality produce that has better shelf life and more consistent quality
than was available earlier. RRL has made significant progress in establishing state-of-
the-art staples processing centres and expects to make them operational by May 2008.

Through the year, RRL also expanded its supply chain infrastructure. The Company is
fully geared to meet the requirements of its rapidly growing store network in an efficient
manner.

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Reliance Trends

Reliance Retail, the Rs. 25,000 crore ‘farm to fork’ retail initiative of Mukesh Ambani
owned Reliance group, which so far has rolled out 350-odd neighbourhood,
convenience format supermarkets that cater to the daily needs of customers, moved
into fashion retailing with the launch of Reliance’Trends’ a speciality apparel fomat . The
first Reliance Trends store was opened at Gurgaon of the National Capital Region in
Autumn’2007. By the end of 2007, Reliance opens 4 more such stores, alongwith one at
Bangalore.

By 2010, Reliance has planned to open 100 apparel stores across the country with
focus on tier II cities. The company is targeting a turnover of Rs. 20,000 crore ($5
billion) from this format. This is a part of the US$ 25 billion (Rs. 100,000 crore) overall
sales from retail business.

Each apparel store stocks about 100,000 pieces of garments of 100 well known national
brands like John Players, Peter England, Indigo Nation and designer labels like Anita
Dongre’s AND, as well as international brands like Wrangler, Reebok, and Lee.
Reliance has also employed 30-odd Indian and international designers to create
garments under 25-odd private labels. Networks (formal office wear), Netplay (casual
collection for an evolving workplace), Panda (kidswear), and Sparsh (Indian women
wear) are some of the private labels that will form 30% of the store’s overall collection.

Addressing requirements of all segments of customers, namely, men, women, and

children Reliance ‘Trends’ offers clothes at all price points beginning from Rs. 199/-.
Incidentally, Reliance has also been selling apparel from its first hypermarket store in
Ahmedabad called Reliance ‘Mart.’

The company is offering solutions to common maintenance problems through its state of
the art innovative products like Ever White Shirts, Anti Stain Trousers, Wrinkle Free
Range of garments, aromatic clothes for infants and quick- dry sports wear that ensures
optimum moisture management.
Product Quality has been ingrained into the DNA of Reliance Trends and is integral to
its mission of “Grahak Devo Bhava”. The Quality system processes are designed,

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implemented and monitored as per international standards by a highly competent team

of professionals. To deliver the customer the best value for their money, only those
products that demonstrate an exemplary safety and quality meeting both implicit and
explicit needs of the customer are approved for purchase. Some of the quality standards
that are being followed are American Association of Textiles, Chemists & Colorists,
American Standard, ISO & BIS test methods.

For the first time in organized retail, Reliance Trends is introducing a Made to Measure
tailoring service, offering customized fits to all the customers buying fabrics from the
store at prices comparable to their neighborhood tailors.

Reliance Trends is offering a homogeneous mix of private labels and brands across
men’s, women’s and children’s categories to fulfill every customer’s requirement.
The Network range of garments comprises of formal office wear collection for men and
women, while the Netplay range, showcases a smart casual collection for the evolving
workplace. The DNMX range has been developed with a clear focus on the youth of
India, offering them exclusively crafted fashion garments like Denims, T shirts etc.

Sparsh range of Indian wear for women, offers the finest collection of Salwar Kurtas,
Churidars and a fast evolving Mix n Match range of garments. An exclusive
label, Panda , has been developed for infants and toddlers , while the Frendz range of
garments would compliment the wardrobes the growing generation of boys and girls.

Apart from these private labels, the store is also offering some of the most renowned
brands in the country like Lee, Wrangler, Peter England , John Players, Black
berry’s, Gini n Jony , Liliput
most of these exclusively for Reliance Trends.

Continuing the tradition of reaching out to the middle class of the country, the current
offering from Reliance Trends is easily affordable to the Indian consumer. The specific
private label called First Class, is designed to cater to a range of garments cutting
across mens’, momen’s, and children’s wear to deliver extreme value to the Indian
consumers.

Taking forward the vision of Shri. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director,
Reliance Industries Ltd. Reliance Trends delivers unmatched affordability, quality and
choice of products and services to the consumer.

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MIS Software Used In The Company

Reliance Trends is using PLM (Product Lifecycle Mangament ) software developed by
FreeBorders Business Solutions Ltd.
FreeBorders, an IT giant and a Chinese software development company, was
established in 1999 in China with a vision of developing software that can be used in
and around the industries of the world, especially USA, so as reform the worlds’
economy as well as of that of China’s. The company marks its entrance into the IT
services with the launch of its first PLM software in 2003 in the global market, which
experienced an overwhelming response. As a result, the company launched a particular
division, named PLM Software Division, which was in the year 2008 was sold to
Lawson,USA.
PLM integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product
information backbone for companies and their extended enterprise.
Company needs to manage communications and information with their customers
(CRM-Customer Relationship Management), their suppliers (SCM-Supply Chain
Management), their resources within the enterprise (ERP-Enterprise Resource
Planning) and their planning (SDLC-Systems Development Life Cycle). In addition,
manufacturing engineering companies must also develop, describe, manage and
communicate information about the product.
Within PLM there are five primary areas:

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1. Systems Engineering
2. Product and Portfolio Management
3. Product Design
4. Manufacturing Process Management
5. Product Data Management

Systems Engineering is focused on meeting all requirements, primary meeting

customer needs, and coordinating the Systems Design process by involving all relevant
disciplines.
Product and Portfolio Management is focused on managing resource allocation,
tracking progress vs. plan for projects in the new product development projects that are
in process.
Portfolio management is a tool that assists management in tracking progress on new
products and making trade-off decisions when allocating scarce resources.
Product Data Management is focused on capturing and maintaining information on
products and/or services through their development and useful life.
The core of PLM is in the creations and central management of all data and the
technology used to access this information and knowledge. PLM as a discipline
emerged from tools such as CAD, CAM and PDM, but can be viewed as the integration
of these tools with methods, people and the processes through all stages of a
production. It is not just about software technology but is also a business strategy.
NOTE: Here in our study of the Production Management department, Product Data
Management feature has been used.

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PLM In Administration

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DEPARTMENTS AT RELIANCE TRENDS’

• Production Department

• Design Department

• Technical Design Department

• IT Department

• Production Management Department

• Buying Department

• Research and Development Department

• Sales Department

DEPARTMENT UNDER STUDY

PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT

The Production Management Department is considered to be the backbone of the

company, as it is considered to be most versatile and integrated department. Several
important activities in the manufacturing of the garments take place in this department
only. Also, this department provides with very essential and important information to
other departments for their future and respective use with the help of centrally based
database.

Functions of Production Management Department in the Company

Some of the key functions undertaken by this department are as follows:

i. It provides with complete specification and construction details of the style with
the help of Specification and Construction module.
ii. Bill of Material (BOM) is created for all the fabric and trim items used for the style
in the BOM module.
iii. The garment colorway and colorway modeling details are completed in the
Colorway module.
iv. It assists in taking of important decisions such as approving or rejecting the
samples on the basis of the specifications available.
v. It also helps Buying and Technical Design department in various issues like:

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(a) Providing feedbacks for the samples to the buying department, in case they
are being rejected due to specification issues.
(b)Recommend changes in style according to the specifications of the style, if
the style does not meet the same.
(c) Helps the Technical Design department in evaluating fit and show-back of the
style and approval/rejection of it.
vi. It also provides with all the packaging details.
vii. It provides with a constant feedback process by which buyers and other stake
holders can provide their valuable feedbacks by reviewing the style of the
garment.

Detailed Description of the PLM Software Usage

The main module or the main functional area of PLM software that is used here in the
Production Management department is Product Data Management. Under this main
module, various sub modules are being used for various different respective uses.

Module Description
Product Data management is the central repository of the entire product related
information in PLM. This is the central module of PLM. As per the characteristics of
different products used in apparel industry the module is basically divided into two
parts:-
a) Product Manager
b) Fabrics, Trims & Accessories Manager

Product manager basically contains the details of the header product or styles and
Fabrics, & accessories manager which contains the details of the raw materials.

The complete description of each part is given below:

a) Product Manager – As stated above Product Manager basically contains all the
information related to a style or header material. The structure of a general header
material or style is shown below. So as per the structure shown below it is clear that a
style generally has two components associated with it i.e. materials such as fabric,
button, thread, etc. and specifications such as measurement chart, Colorway details,
sample details, etc.

Style

Materials Specifications

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Specifications
 Report On MIS Usage In Production Management Department At Reliance Trends

The details of materials and its specifications will be dealt in Fabrics, Trims &
Accessories Manager. The details of specifications required to describe a styles can be
classified under following headers:

i) General Information – This page gives a brief overview and general

description about the products/styles. This is the header page of any style
contains information such as style number, season, designer, etc.

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ii) Measurement Details – This page contains the different point of

measurements of a style of different sizes including the tolerances and
grading rule.

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iii) Construction details – This page contains detailed description about the
construction specification of a style. It basically contains the images of the
different elements of the style with description.

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iv) Colorways – This page contains the description about the Colorways, if any
there in the style. It gives the description about the colors used in the

Here we can see the no.

of colorways.

Colorway.

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Here we can define different

colorway IDs
 Report On MIS Usage In Production Management Department At Reliance Trends

v) Bill of Materials – This page contains the complete BOM of a style till the
SKU level i.e. separate BOM for each size and color.

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vi) Samples – This page contains the description about the different types of
samples required and its current status i.e. whether approved or rejected and
sample request can also be generated through this and can be sent directly to
the vendor.

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vii) Costing Details – It’s always been very crucial for designers and
merchandisers to develop product within the stipulated cost. So this page
gives a facility of pre-costing in which a rough estimation is done on the basis
of different materials used in the style.

viii) Pattern and Marker details – This page contains the details about the
pattern and marker sheet. These can be uploaded in the system by the
factory so that later it can be used different similar style.

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ix) Packaging details – This page gives a detailed description about the
packaging of the style.

x) File attachments – This page contains file attachments, if any related to the
style.

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xi) Comments – As name suggests it is comment page in which different stake

holders can review the style and give comments on the same.

b) Fabrics, Trims & Accessories Manager – As stated above this part of PDM is used
to store specifications of the raw materials which are used in a style. So the details of
specifications required to describe raw materials such as fabrics, trims and accessories
can be classified under following headers:
i) General Details
ii) Costing
iii) Specifications
iv) History
v) Other Details
These headers contain the same information as stated above for a style but for fabrics,
trims and accessories.

Master Data Requirement

The master data required in this module is extensive. Apart from master data few data
tables are also required in some parts of this module. The descriptions of the same are
given below:
a) Product Manager
a. Master Data
1. Material master
2. Vendor Master
b. Data Tables
1. Point of Measurements
2. Constructions
3. Colors
4. Packaging

b) Fabric, Trim and Accessories Manager

a. Mater Data
1. Material master
2. Vendor master

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