Discussion on Visual Management in Apparel Production Controlling
Yi-ling Zhang 1
1
Pinghu Campus, Jiaxing University, Zhejiang, China
(zhangyiling-310@163.com)
Abstract - Visual management as an obvious way of site
management, with 5S, lean manufacturing, and other
production management, results are obvious. With the
development of apparel industry management, VMS also
can bring benefits for apparel business. Simply complex
requirements, quantitative data, process by diagrams, tables
and curves can shorten the time of understanding, so as to
reduce the error rate. According to before and after
implementing VMS in production site, the research sums up
how to apply VMS to control and manage the apparel
production site.
Keywords - Visual management, apparel production,
production site
I. INTRODUCTION
With the development of science and technology,
garment enterprise competition became increasingly
fierce. And traditional apparel production and
management mode are facing new challenges. According
to statistics, China's 90% private enterprises are family
enterprises; the majority of them implement familymanagement [1]. When the enterprises develop to a certain
stage or scale, their family management model and
limited management capabilities delayed significantly
further than the development of the enterprise, all of
phenomenon will put themselves into trouble. How to
change apparel production and management mode, to
improve comprehensive competitive strength of the
garment industry in China in the new century
continuously, became a major issue in front of the fashion
industry. Among them, production management has an
important role on high quality garments production, the
operating environment and the enterprise image. Some
important customers generally to the factory to investigate
before deciding to order; and they often pay Attention to
the details of site management [2].Especially, the good or
bad working environment is the most intuitive
representation to the level of production management.
Customers are often judging the management level and
delivery capabilities from working environment. Facing
the challenges of production management, companies
seek some management methods to pass through.
Some large enterprises has established lean production
management mode [3], by production in time, total quality
management, concurrent engineering, 6S management,
visual management and other means to eliminate waste, in
order to maximize profits and improve the comprehensive
competitive ability of the enterprise itself.
II. VISUAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Visual Management, as known as the "visible
management", refers to using intuitive method to reveal
the station of management and operation, in order to make
staffs to see working progress with the eyes clearly and
quickly find out proper methods and countermeasures. It
depends on visual signals as its basic means, using
intuitive and suitable visual perception, color information
to organize production activities, so that stuffs can catch
the requirements and intentions of managers as clearly as
possible [4]. Therefore, Visual management is
characterized by openness and Visual during management
[5]
. Features of Visual management are displayed all
troubles not only to managers, but also to all employees
openly, rather than operating in the black-box. So that
VMS make information be communicated fully.
Through VMS, enterprises can gain more adequate,
clear, straightforward information; according to the
changing information, managers can be simple, rapid to
master the moment status of production site. VMS makes
the site more obvious, no matter what kinds of people,
they can identify the production normal or not easily,
through such as revealing cards, signs, cards, lights.
Those make the production system more convenient [6] [7].
In the apparel industry, human is the most important
factors [8]. So that "quality and delivery time, costs" which
be required, coming from of every employees; in other
words, habit and attitude of the employees directly
affected the core competitiveness of an enterprise. VMS
form “forms” to “habits”, its ultimate goal is to make the
production process in order, reduce errors, and facilitate
management.
III. PROBLEM AND COUNTERMEASURE
ANALYSIS
The research object is the clothing enterprise's
production site, through interviewing and making
questionnaires with the production manager, researching
garment production problems in the first production site
to search a key to use VMS to control production process.
We interview and questionnaire to obtain data by e-mails.
The investigation lasted for 4 months, surveyed 43 of
garment enterprises, got 189 questionnaires (168 effective
questionnaires), and the effective questionnaire of them is
88.9%. According to anglicizing the results of interviews
and questionnaires, we get the following adverse
phenomenon of site management.
TABLE I
Problems
Inventory
problems
Delivery
problems
Efficiency
problems
[9][10]
Security
problems
Employee
motivation
problems
[11]
Corporate
image
problems
PROBLEMS AND ANALYSIS
apparel production site analysis
Identity is not clear; different varieties of fabrics and
garments are mixed together; unqualified and qualified
product are mixed
Finished and semi-finished products are fixed location,
spending a lot of time to look for, affecting progress
finally.
It is need to take a lot of time to find goods, which are
mixed together, resulting in unnecessary loss of time
and labor.
Dangerous device without risk identification; it is
difficult to get to get tools easily.
Working environment is good or not affect the mood
of employees directly; in good work environment,
employees have a positive forward-looking attitude to
work.
Customers always consider that production site
management reflects the enterprise's management level
directly.
For the problems offered above, managers can apply
VMS to garment production site to convenience
production process and improve efficiency. (1) Flag and
identifies brand: managers can use them to distinct
production region, devices, goods, and personals, such as
in entered region of workshop or specified location using
guide flag, in sewing and packaging workshop using lane
flag, security flag, ban line flag, and particular device
flag. Meanwhile, considered difficulty of production
technology, managers should pay attention to key and
important processes, and distinguish them from General
processes using flags to make checking more easily. (2)
Management line and regional line: they make planning
of all workshops in ordered, while, apparatus and the
other located sites are painted out by management line
and regional line. It will prevent workshop device and
other goods be placed freely. (3) Management board: In
apparel production workshop, the key and most important
part is balancing production line [12]. Management board,
can be considered as a feedback of production online, can
offer production information for workers timely,
including their production capacity, the whole production
capacity and the bottleneck of production line.
Management board also can offer early warning
before production line occurring exception. So that
managers can plan ahead, handling problems timely,
ensure the production line in a stable, balanced, efficient
station. (4) Text materials, such as job guiding, operation
manual: in large production, in order to make the
production process standardization, managers should
specific each process of producing to format “job
guiding” or “operation manual”. Text materials not only
can guide production, but also can be as “checking
standard”. (5) Plato or physical "show": to ensure good
quality of garment, managers according to analysis the
producing problem to make Plato or physical "show". In
production
station,
managers
can
show
the
nonconforming up through Plato or physical "show" [13].
Especially in the OEM apparel production enterprises,
production must accord to the order completely, in this
phenomenon using Plato or physical "show" can make
production more accurate. (6) Color: with the difference
of production workshop and work nature, the color of
work clothes and hats are different [14]. Staffs in same
workshop use the same species color, different position
level staffs use different color, such as sewing workshop
staffs with yellow color, and ironing workshop staffs with
red color. In addition, apparel production should strict
control nonconforming, using VMS to distinguish them in
storage management, generally using red or yellow color.
Furthermore, different workshop and regional lines have
different color. Usually, trunks are with dark color, but
the operational areas are with bright color. (7)Route map:
Some large enterprises in order to facilitate visitors,
learners, set up a simple floor map at the import location.
At the same time, visit roadmap also can be used as an
escape route one. It is necessary for an emergency
evacuation. (8) Regulations publicity and notices: kinds of
rules and regulations such as the Personnel Regulation,
Safety Regulations, 6S Regulations, Production
Specifications, notices and so on, all of them should be
posted intensively .
Research found the following discoveries: (1)Using
VMS makes production information clearer. Managers
can get more direct channels to gain information. Fast and
accurate information can improve managers’ ability to
analyze and handle problems quickly, so that VMS will
significantly shorten the production cycle. Staffs are
always arranged to control production site, including the
preparation of production schedule, the intensity of
production group, and so on. If there is no enough visible
information will bring considerable difficulties for
production controlling. (2)After implementing, everything
in the production site is so clear that managers can reduce
organization structure layer and staff number, reducing
waste and costs. (3)On the management of material
stocks, raw material inventories neither too little, nor too
much. Finished products and semi-finished products
should be clearly marked on the shelf, using "largest" and
"smallest" limited number, below or above the number is
a warning. Whether needing to control the production
speed or adding reproduction, we can know timely by
VMS. Using VMS, managers can meet the production
needs in the most economical way, reducing capital
occupied in stock, management costs and labor costs,
ultimately increasing benefits. (4)Mixing "6S" with VMS
will make the workplace better for operating, reduce
unnecessary exertion, ensure the production process safe
and comfortable, and finally achieve the aim of improving
product quality.
IV. CONCLUSION
Implementation of visual management improves
work efficiency effectively, as well as shortens product
cycle, reduces costs and improves the role of product
quality. Visual management methods also can be used in
the site of garment production to enhance overall
competitiveness. Visual management enables the
production information visible clearly and more directly,
it also helps to improve the production management
skills, to analysis information and deal with the problem
in time. It will greatly shorten the production cycle. After
implementation of visual management, production
management level can be reduced obviously, so well as
compression, management staffing, cost savings and
reduce costs. Managers can easily standardize the site
management issues by using visual management methods
and following unified principles, especially, combined
with the "5S". On one hand, better working environment
was given to works by setting the management line and
set-line to make the operation area clearly. On the other
hand, guarantees were given to improvement of the
production safety, accurate and the quality by setting the
security mark and Plato physical display.
However, visual management is based on the usage
of visual sensory characteristics; and subjective factors
exist in organization of production. Therefore, it can be a
good way to combine it with the performance system to
mobilize the enthusiasm of each employee and to avoid
the workers feel it as a burden. Establishment of
appropriate rules and regulations is quite needed.
Managers also should deal with it from their own tasks,
focus on the problems, explain tasks clearly, strictly and
making them as habits. It can also take the necessary
means and incentives linked to promote the visual
management of the production site to carry out.
In short, the outcomes of implementation of visual
management in clothing production can’t be seen soon. It
requires repeated use of continue to improve. In the
implementation of the way, we should bravely persevere
and keep going, encounter new problems and solve new
problems, and so forth in order to make the application of
visual management in clothing production site just keep
getting better.
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