Manufacturing Process at Mas Active

MANUFACTURING PROCESS AT MAS ACTIVE

Group Assignment

By

W. D. L. S. Weerasekera  (2009/MBA/WE/53)

F.I. Marikkar (2009/MBA/WE/62)

J.B.A.R. Niroshana (2009/MBA/WE/71)

N.B. Mediwake (2009/MBA/WE/74)

Semester II – First half

Course        :        MBA 538 – Operations Management

Lecturer(s)        :        Dr. Chandana Perera

                                Mr. Mohamed Naeem

Postgraduate and Mid-Career Development Unit

Faculty of Management and Finance

University of Colombo

Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY        

Chapter One: INTRODUCTION        

Chapter Two: PRACTICE AND APPLICATION        

2.1  1st and 2nd Wave of the Manufacturing Process        

2.2   3rd Wave        

2.2.2  Measures and Expectations of the Model        

Chapter Three: AIDS AND TOOLS        

3.1 Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)        

3.2  Facility and Process Layout Design        

3.3 Team work and working together        

3.4. Error-Proofing (Poka-Yoke)        

3.5 Quick Change Over        

3.6 Lean Metrics        

REFERNCES        

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

MAS Active (Pvt) Limited is a garment manufacturing company in Sri Lanka with a multitude of factories situated around Sri Lanka. Each factory specializes in manufacturing certain types of silhouettes. The garments produced range from active wear, sports performance and casual wear garments. The customers include brands across the world, which demand quality, delivery and the most competitive price for the products. Customer satisfaction is key to the company and customer relationships are its number one priority.

In order to compete with the best manufacturing facilities around the world and have a competitive edge over them, to ensure that the right customers are retained, the Toyota Production system was studied together with a group of consultants and it was rolled out in the plants over time under the brand name of “MAS Operating Systems” tailor making it to suit the advantages of the  Sri Lankan culture and a garment manufacturing process. The aim was to create MOS as a strategic weapon for the MAS group which could be used to attack, defend or as a tool, when necessary.

Hence in this report we have looked at the evolvement of the manufacturing process overtime and what is MAS Active currently practicing. The features of each of the models and the what it takes and is required for the current model to work is discussed in the report. All this done for one aim: to drive towards a lean manufacturing process, that is sustainable in continuously delivering product at the right time, to the best quality, at the shortest lead time, to its customers.

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

Orders are placed with the company on a monthly basis, depending on the business cycle of the customer.  Once the orders are placed, based on the latest delivery date for raw material into the company, capacity is booked for those orders. Capacity is limited in plants as they are based on factors such as number of operatives, working hours and days, efficiency of the operatives and the number of machines that the factory can hold inside its premises. Excessive hours cannot be worked, as that would not make the employees happy and would only result in a disgruntled workforce, who would not be loyal to the organization. Therefore, it is important that the time lines that are planned for orders received are achieved, so that any loss of capacity is minimized or eliminated.

The total manufacturing process, involves the alignment and coordination of various elements and inputs in large numbers, being in the form of people and material. Thus it’s important that the alignment is done correctly each element fits like a jigsaw puzzle.

Customers demand manufacturing excellence from the plants by measuring the following and providing continuous orders only if they see MAS Active as a strategic supplier to their brands. Speed to market, quality, cost and safety are key focus expectations from the customer.

In a similar manner, the shareholders too, to ensure that the business delivers a return to them and brand equity is retained, pressure is inserted on the management, demanding for the following from the manufacturing process.

1. Lower cost and elimination of waste
2. Efficiency and improvement in productivity
3. Employee morale and retention of employees
4. Working normal hours

Chapter Two

PRACTICE AND APPLICATION

2.1  1st and 2nd Wave of the Manufacturing Process 

Conventional method of apparel manufacturing could be explained in sub divided segments of cutting, embroidery, sewing, quality, ironing and finishing  

All these segments formed in a sequential basis and happens one after the other. These functional segments would happen in different location. Even separate geographical locations