How it all started
Few years ago we had the opportunity to build a system to establish standard times for the garment industry, this was caused by the continued problem of poor production planning, not knowing how well the company was performing, how efficiently we performed the various operations and what our status was in comparison to our competitors.
We needed something that was easy to use simple and of course would produce accurate standard times. It had to be able to produce the best possible method of doing the operation and allow performance to be measured to see where we stood in comparison to the rest of the industry.
Development of SMV
The Pro-SMV (Standard Minute Values) development started approximately 23 years ago, it needed to be simple to learn, open to the operators, and to use tried and tested techniques so that the easiest way to perform the operation could be easily developed, it had to be simple and produce results that would help companies become more effective and competitive.
MTM (Method, Time and Measurement technique) had been developed in the early 40’s and has been used to improve the operational performance of manyindustries since that time. We thought that the advantages of this system could be used to improve garment manufacturing so that was used to develop our system.
After considerable research, we established that sewing, handling, and ancillary work could be broken down into 36 different steps and a simple code was established for each step, together with a time for it to be done, the times for each step are added and the time for every operation is established. Each motion has pre-determined actions and a time for each motion has a time, these are the base of Pro SMV.
Once this technique is used to analyse how people are working, then the potential improvements are easily established, all unnecessary movements are eliminated, thus producing greatly improved efficiency.
Since we are using pre-determined times together with the actions required to perform the function new operation times can be established for costing and estimating purposes. The sewing time is established according to the speed of the machine, the seam length, the complexity of the seam and the size of the stitch used together with the accuracy required when the seam is complete. We now have times for eachindividual step in the manufacture of each operation by adding the steps together we have a time for each operation.
Features of Pro-SMV
- Establishes Best Methods and Standard times
- Automatically establish Thread consumptions
- Pictures and Videos can be attached to operations
- Easy to copy analyses from one operation to another and amend it
- Pictures can be attached to a group of operations required to complete a part/ subsection of a garment
- Drag and drop subsections to build new operation sequence within minutes
- Builds video library for future training of operators
- Extremely user-friendly interface
- Times can only be approved by the authorised person & (normally work study head)
- A complete history of analyses can be retrieved to see who did amendments when was it done and what was the amendments
- Developed on latest technology
Benefits of using Pro-SMV
- It is very easy to learn and apply
- Existing staff will have no difficulty in operating the system in the shortest possible time
- Software is “state of the art” Multi-user, Windows,& written in.NET
- Much easier and faster to use than Time Study, the software is designed to make data entry simple and quick
- Is being constantly developed, and the future development plan is exciting and on-going
- You can develop and improve the work-study department quickly and easily, and if analysts leave, it is a simple matter to train new people
- Analysts can come from the sewing floor a good machinist can become a good analyst in a short time. This has big advantages in Work-study
costs and machinists are in a great position to show operators how to perform new methods
What makes SMV different from othersM
The key difference lies in the delivery of our training, we are extremely hands on with the course delivery, the training is extremely comprehensive and consists of full three weeks course at the end of which we certify and License the qualified trainees.
The difference also comes through the simplicity of learning, which is an inherent part of our training. The codes are very simple to learn and apply. We have trained many machinists to learn these codes and uplifted them to become an analyst and key implementers of the Methods.
One of the other features that stands us apart is the comprehensive structure of complexity levels for the operations.We have developed 5 levels whereas the normal practice is 3 levels. Our program and training are world class yet cost effective than other leading product of this segment. Over the past one decade we have done the most number of installations in India compared to our competitors and that speaks for itself.
ROI of our product (in a 500 machines factory) – By using SMV and deep method investigations one can easily achieve at least 10 – 15 per cent increase in the productivity and this leads to an extremely handsome ROI for the product an example is given below to illustrate this
Total Machines – 500
Current Productivity- 8 Pcs per person per machine
Current production – 4000 Pcs
With a 10 per cent increase, the daily production will
be raised up to – 4400 pcs
Average CM value- $1 (one can replace this by their
own figure to calculate their ROI)
Additional daily earnings – $444
Additional monthly earnings- $11544
Monthly additional expenses of an IE team with 6
people- $3000
Additional monthly earnings- $8544
Cost of the Program with training and installation can be recovered in less than three months after the successful implementation, which is an unbelievable return on investment. For those who strongly believe in the ethos ‘No Measurement, No Management’ Pro-SMV is a ‘MUST’ tool to measure themselves against internationally acceptable standards and manage effectively
