A: We market intermediary products in addition to garments, therefore available capacity of the plant was shared between catering to needs of market (yarn/fabric customers) and internal (Garment) requirements. This and the inability to synchronize various items needed for completing orders was creating disruption (erratic cycles of starvation and overloading) in flow of yarn and fabric required for garment orders. So, in spite of high WIP, expensive finite scheduling software and frequent expediting meetings, there was a high and highly variable lead-time, and orders could not be dispatched in time.

Like others in this business we tried to solve the problem by under-loading the plant but this squeezed profitability.

A: As I mentioned, we are in a very time sensitive and competitive market. We found that our due date delivery performance was inconsistent. Airfreight and penalties, lack of affirmative action to grow the business due to inconsistent supply was causing us considerable losses. Additionally, customers have been consolidating their supply chains and had been threatening to pull out unless we delivered. To survive and succeed in this very tough business, we knew we had to improve operations in a very short time! With the help of TOC we aimed to enhance performance and thereby profitability by building a competitive edge based on reliability with considerably lower lead-times, whilst possibly getting more output from same capacity.