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Peter Wilson is a UNIDO expert who is engaged in reviewing the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) within the Ready Made Garments (RMG) sector to assess the potential improvements to competitiveness and make appropriate recommendations for Sri Lanka.

He delivered a lecture at the Textile Institute, Sri Lanka Section, on Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII) Solutions for the clothing industry.

Peter said that good or bad MRP (Manufacturing Resources Planning) has an impact on the overall competitiveness and operating efficiency of an individual company. He gave some examples and listed some of the areas where output is lost, resulting in the decline of operating efficiencies.

In pre-production some of these can be:-

Fabric and Trim Delay; Delays in authorisation and approval for patterns; Specification changes, sample approval, lab dips etc; Quality issues with raw materials.

In production the losses could be due to:-

Labour Turnover; Absenteeism; Operator Training; Part time working, Operator; Performance, (low efficiency, poor method, motivation); Machine Delay and Breakdowns; Changeover times, (styles, jigs, new settings); Un-measured work (No incentive); Repairs and Defects. (Rework and Rejects), Waiting Time (Not working); Line Balancing.

In post-production the losses could be in:-

Wrong sizes/ratios/colours produced; Missed shipping date; Wrong label/packaging; Incorrect shipping documents; Incorrect invoicing, Over/Under production. Peter also gave examples of lost output in one week and outlined the elements of a good integrated MRP/MIS such as Forecasting, Product Development, Product Design and Specifications, Inventory Control, Costing, Production Planning and Scheduling, Quality Control. He identified five critical management information system characteristics that exist in Best practice benchmarked apparel firms. Full cycle support is mandatory.

Systems must integrate from product conceptualisation through the point of sales analysis and replenishment.

Strong external communications are required. This must include EDI, Email, Internet/web enabled systems and direct access by suppliers and customers to key databases. Communications must extend beyond the company boundaries.

Integration will be driven by a move to a unified company wide database, Responsiveness and flexibility must dictate the selection of a system. There must be continuous improvement. Successful companies upgrade selectively, but regularly.

Technology is constantly changing and improving. The benefits of implementing such systems will be a new discipline from which to manage the business.

Staff will be upgraded and productivity improvements will come about though greater knowledge and control. eg: decisions can be made and questions can be answered by sitting at any computer running the MRP System, since all registers, reports, check lists and are available in the same computer.

This minimises the duplication of work and human error. Peter ended his paper quoting Lord Kelvin; the English Scientist 'What you cannot measure you cannot control'. Robert Walmsley of SewEasy MRP System also presented a MRPII solution for Shoe and Apparel industries.

This was a Comprehensive Modular Software for Commercial Management in the Clothing Environment. It can provide Style Management, with a flexible user defined analysis and fully featured windows capabilities. There is a complete costing feature, showing detail at the style colour size level.

Up to 12 scanned images can be input for specifications, drawings, photos and bill of materials.

The Raw Materials Management can provide, stock management, MRP - order materials by sales order, it can auto create purchase orders, analyse supplier performance, order in time for production, group by fabrics, trims, getup/packaging.

It gives production control and work in progress control via user defined bar coded ticket printing. Salaries can be calculated up to gross and work in progress reports showing, factory, line, supervisor, section and operator, performance, efficiency, and utilisation are easily produced. The main benefits of a MRPII solution for Shoe and Apparel industries include:

Gives employees the responsibility for getting work completed on time; Maintains consistent and accurate information.

Keerthi Abeywickrama, Chief Technology Officer of SewEasy Pvt. Ltd presented its new windows version of best selling SewEasy 2005 System to Nilanthi Gamage of Phoenix College.

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