Facilities and Information Technology as key competitive forces in Export Garments Growth

NIDHI GUPTA (46) DHIRENDRA PANDA(47) NIDHI SABOO (48) ANUBHAV (49)

Introduction
The case study is based upon an role of facilities and information as supply chain drivers in export business, Clifton Exports-Institute of garments manufacturing . where he has touched upon various threads of supply chain management like facility management, role of information technology in exporting, constraints at every stage in case of garment components manufacturer and thus, tried to portray a clear picture of the relationship between manufacturer and exports ways

Q1. Discuss the state of the art facility management of clifton?

The state of art House comprise of all the facilities to produce the end product starting from the raw material processing to the finished goods. It is mainly comprise of -Seam Engineering Unit -Garment Processing Unit -Knitting Unit -Dyeing Unit -Garmenting and Finishing Unit Knitting Dyeing
Garmenting

Finishing

SEAM ENGINEERING
JOBS : - Yarns from fibre - Threads from fibre - Final products from yarns and threads - Seam and Stitching of garments PROCESS: fibre-> yarns & threads -> final Product PRECAUTIONS: - More threads a stitch consumes greater its strength - It depends on tensions, threads control, machine adjustment - Quality parameters of threads and machine - Lubrication of machine

GARMENT PROCESSING

JOBS:
Fibre processing Yarn processing Fabric processing Garment processing Wet processing Finishing PROCESS: Garment finishing by wet processing Dyed for imparting color Finishes for texture of fabrics PRECAUTIONS: Garment Processing grown because of fashion consciousness of people hence quality should not be ignored. Quality control should be efficient in pre sales , post sales services Defects should be lessen as much as possible.

KNITTING DIVISION
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JOBS: circular knitting by good technology from Germany, Japan, Far East fabrics like Fleece and Polar Fleece, Jersey, Pique, Interlock, Rib & Interlock Pointellis etc. Fibres like 100% cotton, Polyester/ Cotton Blends, Gassed Mercerised Cotton,100% Polyesters, 100% Viscos/Rayon and Cotton/Viscos blends PROCESS : Capacity of 3 tonnes/day Process is of very short cycle time PRECAUTIONS: Garments should be various varieties that can meet demand Technology should be used properly Non of the orders from customer should be avoided in any means Quality should be well enough for selling

DYEING DIVISION
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JOBS: Dyeing jobs for Yarns, Fabrics, Garments Pigment padding Bio- wash Softening Tape Dyeing PRODUCTS: Tape dyeing which is used in home furnishing industries Dyeing and finishing of all kind of fabrics produced in the house Equipped with modern HTHP soft flow of Dyeing Machine Vessel capacity from 50kg-800kg Daily capacity 3.8 tonns PRECAUTIONS: Documented quality control programmed for each activity certified by International Lab Quality of Products are matched with International Standards regularly Production is done by keeping Environmental issues like water contamination in mind, how it can be reduced Newly technology based lab uses sophisticated technology like spectrometer for measuring the designs

GARMENTING & FINISHING

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JOBS: Compacting Mercerising Stentering Raising Tiggering Shearing Stenter PRODUCTION: Capacity of 16,000 t-shirts daily Finishing job capacity of 5 tonnes/day Shearing machine capacity of 3.5 tonnes/day Finishing by stenter can be done with capacity of 3.2 meters at a time Overall Production Capacity of the unit is about 8 tonnes/day PRECAUTIONS: Each garments are checked in International Standards manually as well as machines Needle detectors searches for defects Vacuum is used for fastening the job

Q2. Prepare a report on the advantages of locating in a cluster, orientation towards IT enablement and fair and ethical practices as seen in clifton.

Information technology is an important supply chain driver in garments export business because there is different layers like buyer, intermediary in case of Clifton exports. Clifton exports has invested on a different ERP and SAP ERP 4.7 with an aim of automating their supply chain and track inventory levels. In garment export business, expected to deliver faster, within the shortest order time cycle. This IT provides total solution with predictable costs, proven performance & low maintenance costs. It tracks all the data automatically which is free of human interventions.

Cont.
IDEATEC is a mini-ERP solution which helps in judgment making. It has segmented the whole cluster into different modules which is giving quick

information to the management about any change in economy of the production at any point, like Status Tracking Material Tracking Cost Tracking In total, there are twenty-nine modules which manage business of export processing, monitoring and control of business. ERP takes care of planning ,Scheduling and also handles physical, financial and information flow of business.

Q3. Clifton exports promoters are preparing for a site visit

and presentation for a large order opportunity with a leading buyers in USA who is looking at 2 million pieces from this unit across four different product segments. This management must present a SWOT analysis and convince how they can handle such an order along with current business. This may require outsourcing 40 percent of order to venders and manage delivery. The other option could be to expand the plant by investing about Rs 40 crores which may have a pay back of thirty six months. But if Clifton expands in current location, it can save about Rs 10 crores. This may lead to some dislocation in current operations which has to be handled carefully to reduce risk of dislocation affecting revenue. You may advise the company on way forward.

SWOT ANALYSIS OF CLIFTON EXPORT STRENGTH: -Company has already good market share in India - Already it exports to countries like UK, France, Netherland, US by covering all the variety of Garments . - Bulk Order of 2 million pieces so that we will total focus on one place for delivery - All 3PL are nominated by the buyer and only 2-5% are through air - It has six adequately trained quality personnel who are always active during production to check the quality rejections of garments. - Inventory carrying policy is very supportive with provision of storing around 20days of stock in advance - In the house of production it has maintained highly qualified workforce including skilled and unskilled. - Labor Productivity is high - The present location is very good for a new production house to grow because of ambience, facilities and high standard of social infrastructure.(recently grown 10% because of social infrastructure development)

WEAKNESS: -Recovery time is high as 36 months - The variable cost of the materials may affect the price - Order dispatches could be weekly or in one lot. If order size is huge that can only be dispatched in more than one stages. - Inventory cost is affected by price fluctuation and by annual contracts OPPORTUNITY: -Business is always for long run hence it is good for the company to deal with. -Capacity of Company will increase -At least for 36 months the expansion project will run on full capacity hence no chance of being idle - we are outsourcing materials but producing it at our own plant where customer can directly complain about the final products to us. THREATS: -As most of the transportations are through sea, that may delay sometime in delivery which can fulfilled by air although it hampers economics by 30-40%