How to calculate efficiency of a production

batch or line?

Like individual operator efficiency, efficiency of a production line or batch or

section is important for a factory. Daily line efficiency shows the line
performance. To calculate efficiency of a line for a day, you will need
following data (information) from the line supervisor or line recorder.
1. Number of operators how many operators worked in the line in a day
2. Working hours (Regular and overtime hours) how many hours each of
the operators worked or how many hours the line run in a day
3. Production in pieces How many pieces are produced or total line
output
at
the
end
of
the
day
4. Garment SAM What is exact standard minute of the style (garment)
Once you have above data you have to calculate following using above
information
a. Total minutes produced by the line: To get total produced minutes
multiply
production
pieces
by
SAM
b. Total minutes attended by the all operators in the line: Multiply
number of operators by daily working hours and convert total hours into
total
minutes
(multiplying
by
60).
Now,
calculate
line
efficiency
using
following
formula:
Line efficiency (in percentage) = Total minutes produced by the line
*100
/total
minutes
attended
by
all
operators
For example, refer following table. Data calculation formula has been given
on the header row of the table.

No. of
Operator
(A)

48
48
34
35
35
34
34
35
34

Working
hours
(B)

8
11
8
11
11
8
8
11
11

line output
(production)
(C)

160
240
300
400
329
230
200
311
340

Garment
SAM
(D)

44.25
44.25
25
25
25
25
35
35
35

Total
minutes
attended
(E=A*B*60)

23040
31680
16320
23100
23100
16320
16320
23100
22440

Total Minute
produced
(F=C*D)

7080
10620
7500
10000
8225
5750
7000
10885
11900

Line
Efficiency
(%)
(F/E*100)

30.73
33.52
45.96
43.29
35.61
35.23
42.89
47.12
53.03

How to calculate operator efficiency at work?

In apparel manufacturing, skills and expertise of a sewing operator is being

presented in Efficiency term. An operator with higher efficiency produces
more garments than an operator with lower efficiency in the same time
frame. When operators work with higher efficiency, manufacturing cost of
the factory goes down.
Secondly, factory capacity is estimated according to the operator efficiency
or line efficiency. Hence, efficiency is one of the mostly used performance
measuring tools. So how do you calculate operator efficiency in factory? To
calculate operator efficiency you will be needed standard minutes (SAM) of
the garment and operations your operator is making. Use following formula
and calculate operator efficiency.
Efficiency calculation formula:
Efficiency (%) = [Total minute produced by an operator/Total minute
attended by him *100]
Where,
Total minutes produced = Total pieces made by an operator X SAM of the
operation [minutes]
Total minutes attended = Total hours worked on the machine X 60 [minutes]
Example: An operator was doing an operation of SAM 0.50 minutes. In an 8
hours shift day he produces 400 pieces. So according to the efficiency
calculating formula, that operators overall efficiency
= (400 x 0.50) / (8 X 60)*100%
= 200/480*100%
= 41.67%
On-Standard Operator Efficiency:
Operator efficiency can be expressed in more specific ways, like OnStandard Efficiency instead over-all efficiency. An operator may be
attending all hours in a shift but if he has not been given on-standard work
to do in all hours, he will not be able to produce minutes as per his capability
and skill level. In this case, to know operators on-standard efficiency
following formula is used.
Operator on-standard efficiency (%) = Total minute produced /Total onstandard minute attended *100%
Where,
Total minutes produced = Total pieces made by an operator X SAM of the

operation [minutes]
Total on-standard minute attended = (Total hours worked Loss time) x 60
[minutes]
Example: An operator was doing an operation of SAM 0.50 minutes. In an 8
hours shift day he produces 400 pieces. Operator was idle waiting for work
for 30 minutes and his machine broke down for 15 minutes in hours shift. So
according to the efficiency calculating formula, that operators on-standard
efficiency
= (400 x 0.50) / {480 (30 +15)}*100%
= 200/435*100%
= 45.98%
The above example clarifies that if an operator sits idle during shift hours his
overall efficiency will go down.

How to Calculate Production Capacity of a

Factory?

In Apparel Manufacturing, Production capacity is one of the most

important criteria used for vendor selection by the buyers. It is because; the
production time of an order is directly proportional to vendors production
capacity. So it is very important that marketing and planning personnel
should aware about the production capacity of their production units.
Capacity of a factory is primarily expressed in terms of total machines
factory have. Secondly, how much pieces the factory produces on daily for
the specific products? In general, total numbers of machines in a factory
mostly remains same for a period. But factory may produce various types of
product during the season. According to the product (style) category,
machine requirement may change and daily average production in each
style may vary. So to be specific during booking orders, planner should know
exactly how much capacity he or she needed to procure the order in a given
time period.
A factorys capacity is presented in total minutes or hours or in pieces
(production per day). The method used to calculate capacity has been
explained in the following. To calculate Daily production capacity (in pieces)
one needs following information.
1. Factory capacity in hours
2. Product SAM
3. Line efficiency (Average)
1. Calculation of factory capacity (in hours): Check how many
machines factory has and how many hours factory runs in a day. For
example suppose,
Total number of machines = 200
Shift hours per day = 10 hours
So total factory capacity (in hours) = 200*10 hours = 2000 hours
2. Calculation of Product SAM (SAM): Make a list of product category
that you manufacture and get standard minutes (SAM) of all products you
make from work study engineers. If you dont have product SAM
then calculate the SAM. Or you can use average SAM of the products.
Suppose you are producing shirt and its SAM is 25 minutes.

3. Factory Average Efficiency: This data is collected from industrial

engineer. Or calculate it with historical data. Suppose average line efficiency
is 50%. Read the article - How to calculate efficiency of a production line or
batch?
Calculation of production capacity (in pieces): Once you have above
information use following formula to calculate production capacity.
Production capacity (in pieces) = (Capacity in hours*60/product SAM)*line
efficiency
For Example: Suppose a factory has 8 sewing lines and each line has 25
machines. Total 200 machines and working shift is 10 hours per day. Total
factory capacity per day is 2000 hours (200 machines * 10 hours). If factory
is producing only one style (Shirt) of SAM 25 minutes and used all 200
machines daily production capacity at 50%
= (2000*60/25)*50% Pieces
= (2000*60*50) / (25*100) Pieces
= 2400 Pieces
[Note: Production will vary according to the line efficiency and during
learning curve or in the initial days when style is loaded to the line]
Production (capacity) planning is normally done based on sewing capacity.
Having knowledge of the capacity in other processes (internal or external) is
also very important. Otherwise planner may fail and will not be able to meet
the dead line. Other departments such as Cutting room capacity, Finishing
room capacity, Washing Capacity and capacity of the value added jobs.

How to Calculate SAM of a Garment?

SAM or Standard Allowed Minute is used to measure task or work content of a garment. This term is
widely used by industrial engineers and production people in the garment manufacturing industry. For
the estimation of cost of making a garment SAM value plays a very important role. In past scientists and
apparel technicians did research on how much time to be allowed to do a job when one follows standard
method during doing the job. According to the research study minute value has been defined for each
movement needed to accomplish a job. Synthetic data is available for each movements.

General Sewing Data (GSD) has defined set of codes for motion data for SAM
calculation. There is also other methods through which one can calculate
SAM of a garment without using synthetic data or GSD. In this article both
methods are explained in the following.
Method #1: Calculation of SAM Using Synthetic Data
In this method 'Predetermined Time Standard' (PTS) code are used to
establish 'Standard Time' of a garment or other sewing products.
Step 1: Select one operation for which you want to calculate SAM.
Step 2: Study the motions of that operation. Stand by side of an operator
(experienced one) and see the operator how he is doing it. Note all
movement used by the operator in doing one complete cycle of work. See
carefully again and recheck your note if all movement/motion are captured
and correct. (for example motions are like - pick up parts one hand or two
hand, align part on table or machine foot, realign plies, etc.)
Step 3: List down all motion sequentially. Refer the synthetic data for TMU
(Time measuring unit) values. For synthetic data you can refer GSD (without
licence use of GSD code prohibited but for personal use and study one can
refer GSD code and TMU values) or Sewing Performance Data table (SPD).
Now you got TMU value for one operation (for example say it is 400 TMU).
Convert total TMU into minutes (1 TMU=0.0006 minute). This is called as
Basic Time in minutes. In this example it is 0.24 minutes.
Step 4: Standard allowed minutes (SAM) = (Basic minute + Bundle
allowances + machine and personal allowances). Add bundle allowances
(10%) and machine and personal allowances (20%) to basic time. Now you
got Standard Minute value (SMV) or SAM. SAM= (0.24+0.024+0.048) = 0.31
minutes.
I like to refer you an article Secret Behind Calculation of Machine Time in
SAM for better understand of SAM calculation.

Method #2: Calculation of SAM Through Time Study

Step 1: Select one operation for which you want to calculate SAM.
Step 2: Take one stop watch. Stand by side of the operator. Capture cycle
time for that operation. (cycle time total time taken to do all works needed
to complete one operation, i.e. time from pick up part of first piece to next
pick up of the next piece). Do time study for consecutive five cycles. Discard
if found abnormal time in any cycle. Calculate average of the 5 cycles. Time
you got from time study is called cycle time. To convert this cycle time into
basic time you have to multiply cycle time with operator performance rating.
[Basic Time = Cycle Time X performance Rating]
Step 3: Performance rating. Now you have to rate the operator at what
performance level he was doing the job seeing his movement and work
speed. Suppose that operator performance rating is 80%. Suppose cycle
time is 0.60 minutes. Basic time = (0.60 X 80%) = 0.48 minutes
Step 4: Standard allowed minutes (SAM) = (Basic minute + Bundle
allowances + machine and personal allowances). Add bundle allowances
(10%) and machine and personal allowances (20%) to basic time. Now you
got Standard Minute value (SMV) or SAM. SAM= (0.48+0.048+0.096) =
0.624 minutes.

Secret Behind Calculation of Machine Time in

SAM
Standard Allowed Minute (SAM) of an operation is the sum of 3 different
parameter, i.e. machine time, material handling (with personal allowances)
time and bundle time. Material handling and bundle time is calculated by
motion analysis.
Do you know how the machine time is being calculated? A standard formula
is used to calculate machine time. In this article it has been explained in
details. In this article you will get information on how machine time is
calculated forSAM.
Machine time consist of 5 parameters as following
1.

Straight machine time (A)

2.

Number of stops/starts in a seam (B)

3.

Stopping Accuracy (C)

4.

Difficulty of material handling (D)

5.
Machine allowance (E)
1. Straight machine Time (A): Straight machine time is explained as the
time needed in sewing a seam without considering accurate stop at the
end of the seam, material handling and machine allowance. To calculate
straight machine time you need Machine RPM, SPI and Seam length.
Formula: Machine Time (A) = SPI X Seam Length/RPM
To represent machine time in TMU (Time measuring unit), above value (A)
is divided by 0.0006
2. Number of stops/starts in a seam (B): Every time operator stops
machine to align, realign panels or for other motions, a fixed time is
added to machine time. Normally it is 17 TMU (for stop 8.5 TMU and for
start 8.5 TMU). If machine is stopped twice in a single seam then 2 times
17 will be added to machine time. Lets represent number stop/start in a
operation as B.
3. Stopping Accuracy (C): At the time of sewing a seam how would you
like to stop the machine? Machine stop could be a precise stop or normal
stop. For example, during stitching of a pointed collar, machine must be
stopped at the collar point accurately otherwise you do not get sharp
corner. Stopping accuracy can be categorized in different level of

accuracy. A differential TMU value is added to machine time according to

stopping accuracy. Lets represent it as C.
4. Difficulty of handling (D): At the time of sewing garments operator
need to hold and guide fabric panels to get stitches on the desired line.
Difficulty of handling garment components depends on no. of fabric plies
to be sewn, types of fabric is used, shape and type of seam. It is obvious
that sewing a straight line is easier than sewing a curvy line. Handling
multiple plies is more difficult than single ply. According to the material
handling difficulty level the sum of above three (A+B+C) is multiplied
with difficulty factor. Factors used such as 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc. Lets
represent it as D.
5. Machine Allowance (E): A certain percentage of allowance is added
to machine time for machine allowance. Machine allowance is added due
to certain non-avoidable tasks such as threading of machine, changing of
bobbin and machine breakdown needed to perform during sewing. There
is pre-defined allowance percentage for machine allowances. Machine
Allowance is added to the result of above four parameters.
Now to calculate the Final machine time following formula is used
= [{(straight machine Time + No. of start/stops + stopping accuracy) X
difficulty factor in Material Handling} + {(A+17B+C) X D} X Machine
allowance %]
= [{(A+17B+C) X D} + {(A+17B+C) X D} X E%]
= (1+E %) X {(A+17B+C) X D}

How to do Time Study for Garment

Operations?
Definition of Time Study
Time study is a method of measuring work for recording the times of
performing a certain specific task or its elements carried out under specified
conditions. An operator does same operation (task) throughout the day. Time
study help to define how much time is necessary for an operator to carry out
the task at a defined rate of performance.
Time Study Tools
To do time study you need to arrange following tools

A stop watch

Time study format

One pen or pencil

Time Study board

How to Conduct Time Study?
An operation cycle consists of material handling, positioning and aligning
parts, sewing garment parts, trimming threads and tying and untying a
bundle. So in the time study format, divide whole task into various elements
according to the motion sequences of the operation. For example, in
operation collar run stitch, task elements may be
i) pick up panel to sew first seam,
ii) turn collar to sew second seam,
iii) turn collar to sew third seam
iv) check work and dispose and
v) waiting for next pieces.
In this article I will show you filled time study format for Collar run stitch. I
did this study during my internship at Texport Syndicate.
Step 1: Preparation

Arrange stationery like time study format, stop watch (digital one) and
pencil

Select one operation for Time study

Tell the operator that you are going measure time he/she taking to do
the job.

Observe the operation carefully and break down operation into

elements.

Fill the basic information in the time study format. Like machine
category, guide or attachment used.
Step 2: Record Time
Now measure the time taken for completing each elements of the operation
cycle by the operator. Time should be captured in seconds. Similarly, capture
element timing for consecutive 5 operation cycles. During data capturing
only note down reading (see following Table-1) of the stop watch and later
calculate element timing. If you found any abnormal time in any elements
record time during time study and later discard that reading. Or you can
capture
time
for
one
more
cycle
(10
operation
cycles).
Abnormal time may be occurred due to bobbin change, thread break, power
cut or quality issues. Ignore those from the calculation of standard time.

Step 3: Calculation of Basic Time

From the Reading (R) calculate time taken for each element for all five cycles
just by deducting previous Reading from elemental reading. Sum up times of
five cycles for each element. Note, if you discard any reading than in that
case no. of cycles will be four. Calculate average element times. This
average time is called basic time. (in the following Table-2 it is noted as
average time)

Step 4: Calculation of Standard Time

To convert basic time (cycle time) into normal time you have to multiply it
withoperator performance rating. Here for calculation rating is considered as
100%. So, Cycle time and normal is same in this example.
Add allowances to normal time (machine allowances, fatigue and personal
needs etc). Add machine allowance only to those elements where machine is
running and fatigue and personal needs to all elements (approx 20%).
machine allowances are shown in the time study sheet. (I have used these
allowance percentage as seen seniors to use them. I don't know the source
of
these
allowance)
The calculated time (Normal time + Allowance time) is standard time for
each element in seconds. Sum up all elemental time and convert seconds
into minutes. This is standard minutes or SAM (Standard Allowed Minute).

The Concept of Operator's Performance

Rating
Definition of Performance Rating:
Rating is a subjective comparison of any condition or activity to a
benchmark, based upon our experience. While the mechanics of time study
record the time a task did take, applying a rating will determine the time a
task should take.

What is 100% performance or Normal Performance?

The concept of 100% performance is a critical element of time study and
performance measures. Normal performance is the rate of output which
qualified workers will achieves without over-exertion over the working day
sifts provided they know and adhere to the specified method and provided
they are motivated to apply themselves to the work. This performance is
denoted as 100% on standard rating and performance scales.
A slower is performance rate, which will produce fewer pieces per hour, is
recorded as a percentage below 100%. A faster performance rate that
produces more pieces per hour is recorded as greater than 100%.
Characteristic of 100% Performance or Normal operator

Fluid motions without hesitation

No false starts or duplications

Consistent, coordinated, effective rhythm

No wasted actions or work

Attention centered on the task

How to get accurate rating?
To improve accuracy in rating an operator, observer must -

Has knowledge of the operation and the specified method or standard

operating procedures for that task.
Concentrates on operator motions

Is alert to fumbles, hesitations, and other lost motions- these are

seldom or absent in 100% performance.

Eliminates or ignores interruption or events not in the operators

control.

Avoids a corrupting bias when observing fast and slow operators in

succession

Knows that increasing the number of cycles observed increases

accuracy

Standard Minutes (SAM or SMV) for Few Basic

Garment Products
Can anybody estimate SAM (standard allowed minute) of a garment without
seeing and/or analyzing the garment? No. It is not possible. To estimate SAM
you have to analyze the garment carefully and check different factors that
affect the SAM. SAM of a product varies according to the work content or
simply according to number of operations, length of seams, fabric types,
stitching accuracy needed, sewing technology to be used etc.
But still many of us inquire for approximate SAM values for basic products,
like Tee Shirt, Formal shirt, Formal trouser or jacket. An estimated SAM helps
in capacity planning of the factory, calculating requirement of machineries
and even helps to estimate CM (cut and make) costing of a garment.
However, for better understanding I will suggest you first to read articles
How to calculate SAM for a garment?. SAM is a short form of standard
allowed minutes. It means a normal operator can complete a task within the
allowed time (minute) when he works at 100% efficiency.
Standard minutes (SAM) of few basic products have been listed down with
its SAM range according to work content variation. In actual cases garment
SAM may go outside of the limit depending the above factors. This list will
be updated time to time adding more products.

How to Make Production Planning Task Easier?

Question: What are the main tasks (process or steps) of production
planning in garment manufacturing? How one can easily make production
plan for woven factory? ...asked by Arif Hossain
The main tasks of Production Planning Department in a garment
manufacturing unit have been explained in earlier post. Read full article by
opening this link: Functions of Production Planning and Control (PPC)
Department in Apparel Manufacturing

How to make Production planning task easier?

I dont need to mention that Information Technology (IT) based planning
tools (packages/software) are very helpful in production planning as well as
decision making.
What to do when someone dont have IT based system? You need to develop
planning tools and build an internal system for easy access of necessary
information. Planning tools will help you to make production planning faster
and more accurate.
Planning tools: The primary planning tools used by a planner in a garment
export house to do production plan are likely,

A planning board (excel sheet or printed format). See below image.

Time and action calendar (order wise). Time and Action calender format
for production merchant.

Line plan sheet

Pre-requisites information: Following information must be available to
make your planning faster and accurate.

Process flow of an order or list of tasks

Production capacity of each process - Cutting, sewing, washing and

finishing, for sewing - line wise and product wise capacity (pieces per day
per line)

Pre-production status - Such as fabric and trims are sourced or not. If

not yet sourced the expected sourcing date, PP sample approved or not or
expected approval date

Shipment date or planned ex-factory date

You asked for planning process of a woven factory. Planning process does not
change based on fabric used in product like woven or knits factory. It is the
process flow of an order, machine requirement and production capacity
those vary. Here are ways how planning tools are used to make planning
task easier.
#1. Time and Action calendar - Planned cutting date (PCD) and exfactory date which are two most critical dates for planning can be picked
from TnA calendar. You will get total days available to you for all production
processes. Even you will get rough distribution of start and finish date of
each processes.
Order quantity is generally available in TnA calendar.
For example, Total available time for production is 20 days (PCD 1st Dec
2012 and Final inspection date 20th Dec 2012). Order qty. = 10000 pieces
and main processes are cutting, sewing, finishing, folding and packing and
final inspection. List of processes can also be picked from Process-flow chart.
#2. Planning Board: Line loading plan can be made for single process or
multiple processes in a planning board. For reference I have attached below
a planning board for multiple processes. Based on available time and
production capacity of a line you may have plan for multiple lines a for order.
Secondly, You may have postpone production start date if there no free
space to load new order.
Once you draw timeline for an order on the planning board you can see
available capacity in a particular line and according to that you can make
planning for following orders.

Read our previous post for line loading plan. How to make line loading plan?
#3 Calculations: First calculate capacity requirement for the order you are
going to plan. Secondly, check capacity availability in all processes on the
given time frame. Line capacity can be also calculated in minutes. For
example, a garment SAM is 30 minutes and line performs at 50% efficiency.
Calculate total capacity required (man hours) to complete sewing on time.

How to Make Line Loading Plan for Garment

Production?
Do you like to prepare line loading plan? But finding difficulties to allocate
multiple orders.
In Line loading plan planner decides on which date a style to be loaded
and how many lines to be considered for the style to meet the production
completion date.
Line loading plan is an important task for a production planner. Planner
needs to do backward and forward planning based on lead time.
In this article I will explain how to make line loading plan and what things are
important during making a loading plan.
There is lot of mathematical calculation. So, I will suggest you to use spreed
sheet for the making the plan.
Step 1: Make a list of current orders with details such as order no., order
quantity, style description, and production completion date. Refer to the
Table-1. Suppose order has been received on the month March and
production completion date on May from 4th to 21st.
Table- 1: Order list
Order
No.

Garment
Description

OCS101
OCS102
OCS103
GAP104

Dress
Blouse
Trouser
Long sleeve
Tee
Skirt
Dress
Long sleeve
Tee
Skirt
Total

GAP105
GAP106
GAP107
GAP108

Order
Quantity
(pieces)
2000
3000
5000
3000

Production
completion
date
10th May
12th May
15th May
17th May

3000 21st May

1500 21st May
10000 10th May
1200 04th May
28,000

Step 2: Suppose a factory has 5 production lines. Calculate available

capacity of the line using capacity calculation formula considering

absenteeism (10%) and line efficiency %. You should have knowledge about
line wise production efficiency to calculate actual capacity of a line. Or
calculate it prior to line loading plan.
Available capacity in hours = {(No. of operators/machines x working
days in a month x daily work hours x 60) absenteeism %} x Efficiency %
Line wise available capacity has been shown in the Table-2. It is considered
that each line is equipped with 25-32 machines (operators), factorys normal
shift time is 8 hours (480 minutes) and line efficiency is in the range of 39%
to 55%.
Table- 2: Available capacity calculation
Line
No.

No. of
Operat
or

Minutes/Day
(Daily
working Hrs.
X 60)

Line
Efficien
cy

Absenteei
sm %

Line
1

30

480

40%

10%

Line
2

28

Line
3

32

Line
4

32

Line
5

25

Capaci
ty
availab
le
5184.0

480

50%

10%
6048.0

480

55%

10%
7603.2

480

45%

10%
6220.8

480

39%

10%
4212.0

Step 3: Next, calculate required capacity for each order (style) in minutes
and in days. Assume that above 8 styles to be run in 5 lines and styles will
be loaded only in single line. Consider that all lines blank and you have no
issue with starting date. In this stage you have to also decide which line to
be chosen for the styles. Allocate order to the line according to product
category and line set up (machines laid). In Table-3 line number has been
mentioned against the order number. Use the following formula for the
calculation.
Capacity required in minutes = Order Quantity X Style SMV

Capacity required in days = Capacity required in minutes / Capacity

available per day.
Refer to the table-3 for calculated minutes and days required for each style.
Table-3: Required capacity calculation
Order Loade Order
Styl Capacit Capaci Capacit
No.
d to
Quanti e
y
ty
y
Line
ty
SM Require availa Requir
No.
V
d
ble per ed
(Minute day
(Days)
s)
OCS1 Line-1
2000
28
01
56000
5184
11
OCS1 Line-2
3000
25
02
75000
6048
12
OCS1 Line-3
5000
20
03
100000 7603.2
13
GAP1 Line-4
3000
10
04
30000 6220.8
5
GAP1 Line-5
3000
18
05
54000
4212
13
GAP1 Line-1
1500
28
06
42000
5184
8
GAP1 Line-4 10000
10
07
100000 6220.8
16
GAP1 Line-5
1200
18
08
21600
4212
5
Step 4: Now do backward calculation to find the date for style loading. Days
needed to complete production on due date, Sundays and holidays must be
excluded in day count. And add one to two days initially for line setting
according to style requirement. If required, you can add buffer for one to
two days. To make it easy in calculating the loading dates considering above
points use spreadsheet based planning board. For example refer to the
following image-1. I have made loading plan on the planning board for
theses styles. Light blue colored columns represent Sunday (weekly off
days). Finally make another table (Table-4) representing loading date
against orders.

Table-4: Order loading date

Order Garmen Load Producti
No.
t
ed to on
Descript Line complet
ion
#
ion date
OCS1
01
OCS1
02
OCS1
03
GAP1
04
GAP1
05
GAP1
06
GAP1
07
GAP1
08

Dress
Blouse
Trouser
Long
sleeve
Tee
Skirt
Dress
Long
sleeve
Tee
Skirt

Line1
Line2
Line3
Line4

10th
y
12th
y
15th
y
17th
y

Line5
Line1
Line4

21st May

Line5

04th Ma
y

Ma
Ma
Ma
Ma

21st Ma
y
10th Ma
y

Capac Loadi Comme

ity
ng
nts
Requir date
ed
(Days)
26thAp
11 ril
27thAp
12 ril
28thAp
13 ril
11thM
5 ay
5thMa
13 y
11thM
8 ay
21stAp
16 ril
28thAp
5 ril

Step 5: Once you gone through this article, practice this with some of your
real styles. I wish you can make it. If you feel you need further assistance
then write us.

Role of the SAM Value in Production Planning

and Control
SAM value of a garment is defined as how much time it would take to
complete a garment in sewing. This is also known as garment work content
and standard minutes.
To know the role of Garment SAM in production planning, first you have to
understand primary roles of a Production Planning and Control (PPC)
department (or PPC personnel). I have written a post on functions of the PPC
department. Refer this article for the details of PPC departments functions.
Functions of Production Planning Department

To be specific, in this article I am mentioning only key roles of PPC

department, those cant be performed without having garment SAM value.

Determining capacity of the factory and capacity of the individual

sewing lines in terms of how many pieces (product specific) factory can
make in a certain time period with existing machines capacity.

Order booking based on factory capacity for different types of products

Allocating of styles to the lines

Determining production lead time for each orders (styles)

Process scheduling

Production execution and monitoring

Roles of SAM Value in Production Planning includes
1. Line Capacity Calculation: The scientific method of calculating
production capacity of a line (in production pieces per day) is to use
standard time (SAM) of a garment. So, to determine production capacity of a
line (for specific products) in pieces you need to know garment SAM.
2. Lead Time Calculation: Based on the production capacity, order
allocation is done for different lines. A planning guy also need to calculate
how long a style would run in a line if loaded in a single line. If you need to
complete the order in less time, calculate how many lines to be considered
for an order.
3. Order booking: During order booking, you need to consider capacity
availability in a certain period. In such cases you can use how many minutes
you need to make the new orders using garment SAM value and compare
the same with how many production minutes are available in your factory
for the defined period.
4. Process Scheduling: Time and action calendar or production process
scheduling of each order is done by planning department. Again to schedule
a list of tasks, you need to know capacity of each process per day (or a
predefined period). Based on the capacity of each process you allocate no.
of days for the process. Like for sewing department, you determine sewing
capacity of your line (or multiple lines) and according to that you set how
many days to be given to sewing department for production.
5. Order Execution and Production Monitoring: Standard minutes help
planners to set target for sewing lines. Mutually agreed and calculated
target given to line supervisors. On daily basis when you check production
status you can compare actual production with target production. In case
production is getting delayed you can push production team based on given
target.
6. Labor Cost Estimation: One most important task is labor cost
estimation of a specific order. To estimate how much labor cost to be
considered for an order (style), you cant make labor costing without having
garment SAM value.

All the above six points is proving that garment SAM plays a big role in
production planning and controlling function in garment industry.

Garment Manufacturing Process Flow Chart

Garment manufacturing includes number of processes from order receiving
to dispatching shipment of the finished garments. A process flow chart helps
to understand how raw materials are moved from one process to another
process until raw materials are transformed into the desired product
(garments).
To be noted that a process flow chart made for the garment manufacturing
processes will vary based on manufacturing facility and product types. As
some companies do whole process in single plant when others do production
jobs and other auxiliary processes are outsourced.
Based on present apparel industry, garment manufacturing processes are
categorized as

Pre-Production Processes - Pre-production process includes sampling,

sourcing of raw materials, Approvals, PP meeting etc. Read this for further
reading on pre-production processes.

Production processes - Production processes are cutting, sewing etc.

Post production processes - thread trimming, pressing, checking,

folding and packing, shipment inspection etc.
Instead of making a single process flow chart, I have made one chart for
major processes and two separate charts for cutting room processes and
finishing processes for detailed process chart.
Chart#1. Garment manufacturing process flow chart (major
processes)

Chart#2. Cutting Room Process Flow Chart

Chart#3. Finishing Process Flow Chart