How to Make Line Loading Plan for Garment Production?

Topics: Production Planning By: Prasanta Sarkar

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.
OCS101
OCS102
OCS103
GAP104
GAP105
GAP106
GAP107
GAP108

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

Order Quantity
(pieces)
2000
3000
5000
3000
3000
1500
10000
1200
28,000

Production
completion date
10th May
12th May
15th May
17th May
21st May
21st May
10th May
04th May

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
Operator

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4
Line 5

30
28
32
32
25

Minutes/Day
(Daily working
Hrs. X 60)
480
480
480
480
480

Line
Absenteeism Capacity
Efficiency %
available
40%
50%
55%
45%
39%

10%
10%
10%
10%
10%

5184.0
6048.0
7603.2
6220.8
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
No.

Loaded to
Line No.

OCS101
OCS102
OCS103
GAP104
GAP105
GAP106
GAP107
GAP108

Line-1
Line-2
Line-3
Line-4
Line-5
Line-1
Line-4
Line-5

Order
Quantity
2000
3000
5000
3000
3000
1500
10000
1200

Style Capacity Capacity Capacity

SMV Required available Required
(Minutes) per day
(Days)
28
56000
5184
11
25
75000
6048
12
20
100000
7603.2
13
10
30000
6220.8
5
18
54000
4212
13
28
42000
5184
8
10
100000
6220.8
16
18
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.
Image-1: Planning Board

Table-4: Order loading date

Order
No.

Garment
Description

OCS101
OCS102
OCS103
GAP104

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

GAP105
GAP106
GAP107
GAP108

Loaded
to Line
#
Line-1
Line-2
Line-3
Line-4
Line-5
Line-1
Line-4
Line-5

Production Capacity
completion Required
date
(Days)
10th May
11
th
12 May
12
th
15 May
13
17th May
5
21st May
13
st
21 May
8
th
10 May
16
th
04 May
5

Loading
date

Comments

26thApril
27thApril
28thApril
11thMay
5th May
11thMay
21stApril
28thApril

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.