PRODUCTION PLANNING AND SCHEDULING OF A GARMENTS MANUFACTURING COMPANY

1. Introduction

TREND SHOPS SDN BHD is a manufacturing unit of (mid-upmarket) ladies garments.  It has in-house designing, sampling manufacturing, marketing and send them to a sister company for retailing of its output in Singapore and Malaysia.  The factory is located in Malacca (Malaysia) in an Export tax free Zone.  The factory has about 40 sewing machines with 65 staff. More details about the factory will be attached as an appendix.   I am the CEO of the group (manufacturing and retailing) and am addressing the issues to improve the quality of the production processes.

2. Problem

The factory was exclusively manufacturing garments for its "in house" consumption through its sister companies. As the retail market faced intensive competition, sometime the group has over stock of either finished product or the raw material.  Due to the factory's reputation for quality of finished product, many high-end labels (E.g.: Van Lack, Laurel, Leslie Fay, Liz Claiborne) wants to give order to the factory for its market in ASIAN market. However, due to poor planning and co- ordination, lack of efficiency in sampling and inability to adjust to the requirement of different level of quality control, the factory was unable to accept such orders. Sometimes, the response to order were late and unprofessional.  Therefore, the factory was underutilized leading  to financial losses.