This research paper is relevant to Indian Apparel manufacturing sector.
We might pause to remember that our technological capabilities far outstrip our abilities to use them.
Today in
Telephones – Fixed Lines almost for all employees at corporate office
a. Inbound Calls – Making calls within the organization
i. To Manufacturing Units
ii. To Cell Phones of Senior Executive
b. Outbound Calls – Making calls outside the organization
- To Customer – Most of these calls are expensive international calls
- To Customers Fixed Lines
- To Customers Cell Phones
- To Domestic Suppliers
- To Supplier’s Fixed Lines
- To Supplier’s Cell Phones
- To International Suppliers
1. To Supplier’s Fixed Lines
2. To Supplier’s Cell Phones
2. Cell Phones for all Senior Executives
a. Inbound Calls – Making calls within the organization
i. To Manufacturing Units
ii. To Cell Phones of Senior Executive
b. Outbound Calls – Making calls outside the organization
i. To Customer – Most of these calls are expensive international calls
1. To Customers Fixed Lines
2. To Customers Cell Phones
ii. To Domestic Suppliers
1. To Supplier’s Fixed Lines
2. To Supplier’s Cell Phones
iii. To International Suppliers
1. To Supplier’s Fixed Lines
2. To Supplier’s Cell Phones
3. Email – POP Email Facility for all employees. The company is again spending money annually in hosting an email server.
How can Internet substitute in cutting down the above cost???
1. All computers in the company are connected to internet. We can utilize Voice/Video conferencing facilities using freeware tools such as Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype etc.
2. These popular free wares not only have audio and video conferencing facilities, but also enable text chatting.
3. One can save and store the entire conversation (Only Voice & Text conversations) on the computer for future reference and documentation.
4. Hence all inbound calls to fixed lines can be completely eliminated & inbound calls to cell phones can be reduced to some degree.
5. We can enforce the Manufacturing facilities to fall in line with the system.
. We can encourage suppliers to also use same means of communication and thus create a win and win situation helping them reduce their operating expenses.
7. We can put across the idea to customers as well who I’m sure would be more than willing to cooperate.
8. This also means that real time communication, quick response system & reduced lead times in decision making process.
9. Interviews can be conducted on internet by asking the applicants to login at a pre determined date & time. Almost everyone in today’s computer age have an email address. This can save time of the senior executive conducting the interview as well the candidate’s time and conveyance. A video conference can help us even better analyze and interpret the candidate’s personality.
Design idea for customized Chat Server for cost effective, profitable communication
1. If the organization has hired software professionals to design and develop ERP solutions, then they might even explore the options of developing a completely customized Chat Service that would align itself with its ERP.
2. This chat service should be enabled with audio/video conferencing, file sharing, and photo sharing features (just like yahoo).
3. It should be enabled to save the transcripts of Audio & Text Conferences.
4. The concept what we have to plan should align itself with the business process and expedite the execution.
Let us take a bird eye view on current business process that the apparel industry in
1. The customer places the order with the organization, following which to manufacture the end product we procure raw materials from all over
2. This being the case the quality and specification of the raw material needs to be precise to deliver quality goods.
3. This means we first obtain a few samples of the raw materials, we test them for desired standards and if all is well, we approve the quality and ask the supplier to bulk ship the raw materials.
4. While the supplier ships the raw materials, we use the samples that he has sent and develop a prototype of the product the customer wants and send it to the customer asking him to approve the design and functionality of the product.
5. On approval from the customer, the organization can get the raw materials in bulk and start the mass production.
6. There is a delay in to and fro communication. A certain amount of lead time is gobbled up waiting for approvals. Transportation has its share of lead time too.
7. In this scenario we can use the technology of video/audio/Text conferencing to our advantage.
8. For instance, the layout of the label that goes on the product or on the packaging material is usually sent to the customer for approval on the layout, design and textual content. This can be done even on a video conferencing.
9. Similarly the placement of embellishment on the product, the fit and the functionality of the garments, all these can be approved by simply interacting via a camera on video conferencing.
10. Next is the documentation part, the plan is to create a chat room with order reference number being the chat room.
11. In that chat room all parties linked to the order will be listed in a tree structure under the branches, for instance the departments with in the organization can be linked in the following way
Department
Marketing
Marketing Head
Merchandising Head
Merchandiser
Sourcing
Fabric
Fabric Coordinator - Name
Trims & Accessories
Trims & Accessories Coordinator – Name
12. One should be able to select whom to converse with and start the conversation.
13. We need to ensure that the ERP has to automatically create a chat room with the chat room name being the order number upon the order entry is made in to the system.
14. With such a system in place every level of the management hierarchy can have a real time track on the process & status of the order.
5. Such a chat service should be able to save, store and document the entire conversation in that chat room and file it under that order number for future reference/analysis.
IT for ease of T & A
In my earlier article named “Strategy for Implementation of IT/ERP solution in Apparel Manufacturing”, I had talked about a system called Time & Action Calendar (T & A Calendar). A T & A calendar in a simple way can be described as a scheduler/organizer/ reminder for a merchandiser. In apparel industry an order execution will be coordinated and controlled by merchandiser. At any given time a merchandiser may be handling more than one order. A merchandiser is supposed to have a T & A for every order that she handles. The T & A is nothing but a list of critical activities that are supposed to be followed up and completed on certain pre planned day. The criticality of the activity & the number of critical activities depend of the process involved in manufacturing the product. Hence every T & A is different and is process specific. In such circumstances one can very well understand the mix up that a merchandiser may get in to while coordinating and controlling the order execution. Maintaining, updating & following different T & A for every order can sometimes be confusing and laborious task very frequently leading to chaos and confusion. When I was working as a planning executive I suggested a very simple technique to merchandisers to help them to avoid such chaos and confusion. The suggestions were as follows.
- Once T & A is prepared for a particular style, a reminder can be set for every activity using any general organizer & scheduler software. Ideally “Microsoft Outlook” would be the best choice.
- We can enter the all the activities & their deadlines of a particular style and set the reminders for certain days in advance prior to the completion of the activity.
- On that day the system would alert the merchandiser that a certain activity was due to be completed. This reminder can be emailed to all the coordinating agents linked to the process or a similar reminder can be set on anyone’s system.
- A weeks schedule, a month’s schedule or the scheduled list of activities and their deadlines can be take as a calendar printout and used for reference & follow-up by the merchant.
But here again the problem for the merchandiser is to attend and respond to every reminder that pops up on her screen. Keeping a track of the emails that she sent to the coordinators of other processes and following up on the activities and documenting them in a chronological order. It is also important that she keeps setting reminders on incomplete or rescheduled activities and keeps a log on them. However one has to realize that it is a lot more systematic and easy to keep track of than the earlier system that completely depends on human memory.
Here is the improvised version of the idea:
1. There are certain free wares available on internet that can play pre-designated music on the computer at a scheduled time.
2. Now using the same concept, the idea is to voice record the reminder and set it to pop up and play on certain date and time.
3. Once the voice reminder pops up and plays the reminder, then merchant should be able to re-record the response/action plan to the reminder and reset a date or time for further follow-up or close the reminder with a log report of completion.
4. Such a system can be built into an ERP and this would completely eliminate all the typing work and reports.
5. The system should further save and store all the voice files on a time line base and in chronological order.
6. Such voice enabled reminder can also be set to pop up as a reminder to the coordinating agent of the other process and pop up play on his/her screen at a pre designated date and time.
7. Further on the response on the other party may also be recorded and replied back to the point of origin.
