MAS Linea Aqua (A Trend Setter)
MAS Linea Aqua Main plant is situated in a calm and quiet nature of Giridara which is just 4.5
km away from Hanwella Town. I went there on a Tuesday to collect the information for our
project regarding Management concepts. Though it may look calm and quiet for the onlookers
the inside story is entirely contrasting. Linea Aqua has mainly two seasons for their production;
Peak season and off peak season, Peak is from March to August and Off Peak starts after August
till March. Unfortunately I had to visit them in March, the first impression that I had of their
production team was that they were performing like bees in a bee hive, the production modules
or the lines were properly organized and it was impossible find an idling person inside the
factory. I had to wait for like two hours to get an appointment with the recruitment Managers as
they too were busy with interviews.
“Sri Lankan mind set regarding the employment category of Garment workers is impenetrable
due to social aspects of the rooted culture. So as the recruitment team, it’s our duty to achieve
this impossible task of recruiting required skillful employees in to the production Team”. Said
Mr. Deshapriya (Recruitment Executive in HR Department)
The first person I could interview was Mr. Deshapriya who has more than 5 years of experience
with the company. He has joined the company as a supporting staff member and has since
climbed up the ladder for the position of Recruitment Executive. His assistant Mr. Rajitha too
confirmed the above statement.
According to their acknowledgement, the Hierarchy of MAS Linea Aqua is as follows,
Management
Executive
Staff
Worker
Direct
Indirect
The worker category is divided in to two sub sections as Direct and Indirect based on the means
and methods of participating in the productions cycle.
WD (Worker Direct): Machine Operators, Quality Checkers, Cutting Operators Etc.
WI (Worker Indirect): Supporting operators, Loaders, Packers Etc.
Mr. Rajitha is mainly responsible for the recruitment of WIs and Mr. Deshapriya was responsible
for the WDs. Linea Aqua has yearlong recruitment cycle for the WDs while for WIs following
situation should arise for a recruitment possibility.
1. An additional requirement should arise in a Indirect Section
2. A WI should resign from her position
3. Or a WI should get promoted for a higher position
Total head count of the company is around 3500 and therefore there are daily recruitments for
the WDs to ensure the smooth flow of production cycle which would be around 60 experienced
operators or freshers per month.
If the vacant position is related to sound technological position, interview process would be bit
longer than other positions. It would consist of an assessment paper, Practical test and a face to
face interview.
The workers have a visible career ladder where any machine operators can promote her in to
better position with her or his performance. When they need someone in to their staff category
they tend to interview their internal operators before advertising in to external environment.
Any Machine operator can apply for a step further from her job after 2 years of experience.
However if anyone has previous experience of 1 year in another company and has one year with
Linea Aqua that person also get eligible to apply for any promotion within the company.
Every person who is recruited for the company should undergo a training program of 6 months
which would be the probation period. Within this period she or he would be under close
supervision of job trainers where they would complete a daily checklist to assess the
improvements of the trainees. Not like most of the local conglomerates, they tend to provide EPF
and ETF as soon as they enter in the company and within this 6 months the employees are
provided with 3 days of leaves, where if the employee would unable to keep the attendance due
to unavoidable circumstances such as sickness, the probation period would not get extended
(Employee need to prove his or her side of the story). However their period of probation may get
extended due to following reasons; the employee underperforms in his or her job, if the
employee has so many unauthorized leaves and if the employee doesn’t reflect his or her
commitment to job. After the normal probation period the operators are provided with an
increment, incentives and attendance bonus. When it comes to the health, transportation,
Training and development of the employees, following facilities are provided free of charge by
the company; for WI and WD categories they should complete 1 year with the company to have
health insurance facility and after completing five years they get a family coverage where they
can look after health issues which may arise in their family. However this is facility get divergent
for staff and executive category, they receive the insurance facility as soon as they join with the
company. Transportation facilities are categorized according to the hierarchy of employees, WIs
and WDs are provided with buses and for staff and executives they are provided with AC vans.
They have training facilities and other educational programs on weekends to improve the life
styles and knowledge of the members of the workforce.
So these are the main plus points Mr. Deshapriya mentioned during the interview, and as you can
see these are the conditions which have assisted the MAS Lines Aqua acquiring an exceptional
reputation in Sri Lankan Textile industry.
Subsequently I interviewed was Mr. Jeewan (Employee Relationship Executive: A member of
Production Relationship Team “PRT”)
He said “When we consider a company there are two contrasting hemispheres which are the
employers and employees. Employer seeks for boost in profit while squeezing the bottom line,
and at the same time employees seeks for boost in remuneration and benefits with a bearable
workload. So we as the “PR Team” perform a mediating personification between these two
sects”.
The PR team interferes with the concerns that indicate below
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Grievances
Training and development opportunities
Employee engagement
Employee Satisfaction issues
Motivational programs
Discipline handling
EPF, ETF and Gratuity handling
The Main focus is given for “WI” and “WD” sections as they are more pressured than others job
Categories. According to Sri Lankan mindset it’s easy to recruit managers (People for White
collar jobs) but hard to recruit and retain W category people (Blue Collar Jobs).
Therefore they have taken following initiatives to ensure the retention of the employees:
The employee turnover of the company is around 2.25%, while it has been slightly increased up
to 2.3 in 2016. Through their researches they have found that within this percentage of turnover,
the highly un-retainable employee category in the company is the “WI”s who are below six
months of, joining the company. The established or permanent workforce is less likely to resign
from their assigned jobs as they are well settled in the company.
Employees who have
more than 1 year of
experience
0.075%
Employees who get
maternity leaves
0.275%
Employee Turnover
Due to personal or
unavoidable
circumstance
(Marriage/ Motherly
issues/ health issues)
0.15%
Employees below 6
months
1.75%
Human Resourcefullness
Human Resourcefullness
2.25%
5.7%
Employee
Retention
97.75%
94.3%
Employee
Turnover
Attendance
Absenteeism
Comaparable of 2014 and 2015
2015
2014
Employee
Turnover
2.25%
Employee
Turnover
2.3%
Employee
Retention
97.75%
Employee
Retention
97.7%
This 2.25% of turnover is inclusive of Controllable as well as uncontrollable facts as well;
Controllable: Employees below 6 months/ Well Experienced Staff
Uncontrollable: Employees who get maternity leaves/ Personal issues
So it is the duty of the PR team to avoid and retain the controllable facts. As achieve this they
have implemented following programs to ensure retention and co-operation of the workforce.
1. Happy Today: This is a program where every Friday the “PR” team holds a survey with a
questionnaire, inclusive of seven questions for employees who are 6 months below. With
this they tend to direct their focus on “Unhappy” employees who are regarded as a threat
and hard to retain category.
2. Amba Yaluwa (The Buddy): This is a program where an experienced employee is
assigned to look after a fresher till she or her capability of achieving the targets improves
with the training. The buddy can be recognized with a badge and the best buddies are
compensated with a Gold coin.
3. Sisters Go Beyond (A Sub category of Women Go Beyond “WGB): This is a program
where sisters are appointed to take care of teams. To enhance team spirit, and to create a
caring culture the sisters who performs well are subject to the WGB program.
4. JCP (Joint Consultation Process): Every month one ERE (Employee Relation Executive)
and Factory manager have face to face chat with randomly selected employees.
5. Staff Forum: This program is for the staff and executive category, where 2 sessions per
year is held to hear their concerns or grievances.
The garment Industry is target and quality oriented. If one hour of production gets dropped due
to turnover or grievances it effects the whole day of production. So PR team tries so intensely to
give concrete solutions for the members of the workforce on the spot itself, as they have fewer
importances in work field to lose. If not they tend to change their employment swiftly than other
industries.
According Mr. Jeewan company is highly effected from resigning of a fresher than a
experienced worker as with the training cost around Rs. 80,000 per person it gets at least one
year to receive the ROI of that trainee. Therefore, with above tools of management controls they
keep the turnover at the bay of 2.25% the lowest rate in Sri Lankan Garment industry as per Mr.
Jeewan.
Another highly considerable factor for failure in production cycle is the “Absenteeism”, as they
have a chain production system, when one person of a module get absent it disrupt the chain
where the line is unable to complete the garment. So they have a team named “Floaters” who are
highly trained in every machine of the production cycle which is 10% of the total WD category.
Also to discourage the absenteeism they provide attendance bonuses.
To ensure the safety of the WDs every machine consist of “Needle Guard” and “Eye Guard”.
Also the workers are instructed to wear “Head Gear”, “Slippers” and “Hand Gloves” and made it
compulsory to wear them before entering in to the module. Every week they have safety audits to
ensure workers’ adherence to these safety regulations. They practice the 6s for safety and they
have made those instructions visible for the whole company with billboards. The procedure or
the punishments for violation of safety regulations varies according the situation.
Needle Guard
Eye Guard
Head Gear
6s For Safety
Development of WDs can be depicted as follows,
Supervisor
Sample Maker
Team Leader
Team Leader
Team Member
Team Member
So if we disseminate these management controls according to McGregor’s X & Y Theory we can
come up with a certain viewpoint regarding motivational factors of MAS employees:
Hygiene Factors
Motivational Factors
Visible Career Ladder
Remuneration/Increments/Incentives
Responsibility (The Buddy)
Quality of Supervision
Recognition (WGB)
Job Security
Promotion
Work/Life Balance
Working
Conditions Sense of personal achievement
(Transportation/Food/Safety)
Growth (Development program)
Company Policies
X
At the recruitment stage they
are treated as X theory
workers
They dislike to work as
machine operators
They are lazy
Must be coerced to perform
Neutral
Y
After provided with Hygiene After
Provided
with
factors they become neutral
motivational factors they
become Y Theory Workers
They work according to the They tend to go beyond
target
targets with utmost quality
They are closely supervised
A caring culture is established
They stick with the company They reflect their creativity
till they get their remuneration which will be beneficial for
package
the company.
Finally I interviewed Mr. Dinidu the Learning and development executive in the HR Department
to get an idea of the overall management structure in MAS Linea Aqua.
Goal setting: Goals are set by the chairman (Mr Mahesh Amalean) annually, for the MAS
Holdings and distributed among the joint ventures. After that the different SPOs and clusters set
their own goals to achieve that main target which is set by the chairman. Then the CEO of Linea
Aqua cascade the goals for the Exco team and after that they get cascade in to the different
departments of the company.
They have three main plants which are situated in Hanwella, Naiwala and Vietnam. Since they
have the highest head count in Hanwella, the HR department is consist of 25.
He said “We have a closely bonded team where conflicts are minimal this is mainly due to our
department head who is very friendly and an open person”.
They have a competency framework where three skills are measured according to the hierarchy
Technical Skills
Soft Skills
Leadership Skills
Machine Operators
Staff
Executive to GM
Team heads should use a contingency approach for the production team as there will be genuine
workers as well as theory x workers so the leniency toward the worker change according to the
situation.
KPI achievements are considered for increments and bonuses. By midyear they assess where
they stand with their goals and adjust accordingly.
Team KPI 2017
January
February
Budgeted Cadre (Production)
Actual Cadre
(+/-)
2074
2075
1
2074
2075
1
Budgeted Turnover%
Forecast Turnover
Actual Turnover
2.25
60
48
2.25
60
48
Budgeted Absenteeism %
Actual Absenteeism %
Unauthorised Absenteeism
5.71
6.05
0.87
5.71
6.05
0.87
Budgeted Cadre (TC)
Actual Cadre (TC)
(+/-)
70
67
-3
70
67
-3
Budgeted Turnover (TC)
Actual Turnover (TC)
15%
15%
15%
15%
Recruitment Target
Actual Target
122
117
122
117
March
April
May
June
The Slogan that was indicated on the seats was as follows,
July
August
September
October
December
Linea aqua is formed through strategic partnerships with Speedo (Technical Partner), Brando
(Financial Partner) and MAS (Business Partner), where each of them have an equal share of
33.33%.
Pros & Cons of having strategic partnerships
Pros
Back up in areas of Technical/Financial and
Business is provided by the partners.
Cons
It’s hard to make stand alone decisions. Ex:
when the MAS Linea Aqua CEO decided to
create a GYM that decision was banned by
the Brando.
They tend to support each other in difficult
times.
Efficiency level gets differed from lingerie cycle for swim wear so Brandix is the main threat
they face as a competitor as they are capable of handling the both sides while Linea Aqua is all
about Swim Wear.
E
f
f
i
c
i
e
n
c
y
Efficiency curves of Lingerie and Swimwear E
f
f
i
c
i
e
n
c
y
Lingerie
Time
Swimwear
Time
“Think, change, Sustain”
“Sustainability is a subject that has come up now in the buzz word in cooperate culture.
Everybody is talking about Sustainability. But I really don’t know if anybody understands what
the true meaning of sustainability is. It’s not just about growing trees or protecting water or
anything like that. It is all in composing subject that covers all those aspects; from energy to
conservation to and everything that we do and sustainability is important from a point of view
that: one, the world is getting overcrowded, it’s going to be important that every resource we
have be used in a sustainable manner. Secondly, as a responsible cooperative entity, it is very
important that we set an example of sustainability in the nation”. Said Mr. Sarinda Unamboowe
(CEO/Managing Director of MAS Linea Aqua)
Following are the precise steps to ensure sustainable culture in the Manufacturing plants.
1. Energy: LED Task lights has been installed to provide more light on the point of sewing
while minimizing the waste of CFL and Sky Lights have been installed to bring more
natural light on to the floor and reduce energy consumption overall .
They have installed more than 225 solar panels to produce 50 KW of power for the
production cycle.
2. Water: The use of sensor taps to conserve water,
They have a waste water treatment plant to clean more than 50,000 litres per day to use in
washrooms and gardening.
3. Caring for habitat: Rehabilitation of Mulatiyanwala; they cleared the entire lake of
Mulatiyanwala where it was covered with Salvinia distorting the natural beauty of the
area and disrupting the eco system.
Ten lakes of Yala national park were renovated to face draughts.
4. Biodiversity: They created a biodiversity conservation hotspot within the manufacturing
plant itself.
The Hiniduma bilingual project and effort of carbon consulting company along with
rainforest rescue international to establish biodiversity in Sinharaja and Kaneliya in Sri
Lanka
So What?
PESTLE Analysis of MAS Linea Aqua
Government Policies Ex:
GSP+
Career Attitudes Ex: Worker in a
Garment Factory
Labor Laws Ex: Labors are
only allowed to work for
hours per week.
Population Growth Ex: More
Seniority people
Consumer rights and laws
Product Labeling
Health Consciousness
Health and safety
Advertising standards
Instability in overseas market
Ex: Victoria Secrets.
E
P
Economic Growth
Inflation
Taxation policies
Employee salary scales
E
T
S
Technologically improved
fabric materials Ex:
Spandex/Poly Alternative or
cotton
High technological
improvements in machines
which require more
technical skills
L
Pollution targets
Decreasing wastage of
scarce resources Ex:
Wastage reduction
programs (Thuruliya,
internal solar power
systems and Trail)
Water Recycling
SWOT Analysis of MAS Linea Aqua
Strong Management
High Staff Turnover
Innovative Culture
High Absenteeism
Supply Chain
Strategic Partnerships
I
n
t
e
r
n
a
l
Unique Products
Customer Loyalty
S
W
Innovation
Unstable Economy
New Technology
Volatile Currencies
Emerging Markets
O
New Products
Intense Competition
International Expansion
Political Risk
Govt Regulations (GSP+)
Positive
T
Negative
E
x
t
e
r
n
a
l
Threat of New
Entry
++
Supplier Power
++
Competitive
Rivalry
-Threat of
Substitute
++
Buyer Power
--
Porter’s Five Forces Analysis for MAS Linea Aqua
Threat of New Entry (Very
Weak)
Buyer Power (Strong)
Threat of Substitute
(Very Weak)
Competitive Rivalry (Very Strong)
There are many buyers
Substitutes can rarely
offer the same
convenience
Moderate number of competitors
Some suppliers are large
but the most of them are
pretty small
Buyers bargain for lower
prices and higher quality at
the same time
Alternative types of swim
suits may cost less but
won't give the desired
outcome for the buyers (In
Olympics the way your
swim suits perform will be
an added advantage)
Industry is very large but matured
MAS produce their own
fabric materials with the
help of their production
Lab
It doesn’t cost much for
buyers to switch to another
swim suit designer
Size of competing firm’s vary but
they usually compete for different
consumer segments(Brandix)
A firm has to produce at least 5
million (by some estimations)
swim suits to be cost
competitive, therefore it is very
hard to achieve economies of
scale
Materials widely
accessible
Needs and wants of the
buyers change every day
with new trends of Swim
Suits
Customers are loyal to their brands
Governments often protect their
home markets by introducing
high import taxes
Suppliers do not pose any
threat of forward
integration
Buyers are price, quality
and trend sensitive and their
decision is often based on
quantity, quality and design
There is moderate threat of being
acquired by a competitor
Large amount of capital required
High retaliation possible from
existing companies, if new
entrants would bring innovative
products and ideas to the
industry
MAS Linea Aqua has a
established brand image and
reputation
Supplier Power (Weak)
Large number of suppliers
Finally having a telephone interview with a “WI” of the Manufacturing plant we came up with
following conclusions.
According to the machine operator most of the operators doesn’t follow the rules therefore there
are consequences. All the team leads will threaten then with consequences. Currently MAS
doesn’t have a caring culture where workers will go extra mile to take care of each other.-This is
a problem mindset needs to be changed with behavior. According to the machine operator they
have issues in their teams due to some of the team leads. Their team spirit is low and members
are emotionally disconnected. Team members do not hold one another accountable for the
quality of their collective work. Example error of the sewed item was blamed on the machine
operator only. With the increase production each and every year they are more pressurized with
the tight work schedules and target schemes. I totally understand the situation, however if they
are provided with more flexible target scheme, they may able to perform more freely and
efficiently with the resources they have.