Online Clothing Study

Last Saturday, I visited the Garment Machinery Exhibition in Delhi. The exhibition was Garment Technology Expo 2018. I would like to share some of the good moments at this event.


I attended the global summit on Apparel 4.0, Shaping the future with smart factories. I listen to some of the global experts on this topic. Here are few names -
Dr. Mike Fralix, President and CEO, [TC]2 Mr. Dietrich Eickhoff from Durkopp Adler, GermanyDr. Prabir Jana, Professor NIFTDr. Rajesh Bheda, Rajesh Bheda ConsultingMr. Samath Fernando, CIO, Hirdaramani, Sri LankaDr. Darlie Koshy, DG ATDCand many others In the global summit, global speakers and panelist discussed following topics
Apparel 4.0 - Opportunities in the global scenario: Technology providers' perspectiveApparel 4.0 - Opportunities in the global scenario: Users'perspectiveApparel 4.0 - Opportunities and Challenges for implementation in India - India perspective Dr. Mike Fralix had shown one video of a digital factory (an ongoing developme…

Last month I had a business trip to Turkey. I visited Turkey to implement our Shop Floor Control system in a garment manufacturing unit and to train the factory team. The system is an RFID based shop floor production control system.

My purpose of sharing this trip story with you is just for sharing knowledge and information. I am not going to disclose any confidential information of the visited company.

I regularly used to visit garment manufacturing factories in India. This time it was in a different country. So, I was excited about this trip to see things how garment factories work in that country. You might have a similar question in your mind.

You will surely find some interesting information that might be useful and can be implemented in your factory. Keep reading.

The garment factory I had visited is located far away from Istanbul, the capital city of Turkey. The factory is located near a small city. I loved the surroundings of the factory. There is the highway on one side and a…

timeSSD® - the collaborative, scientific work measurement tool for the RMG industry
What is it timeSSD®? timeSSD® is a time-cost benchmarking, worldwide available social manufacturing software solution. timeSSD is a standard time data system for labor-intensive industries with special focus on sewing industry and integrated Social Manufacturing features.

In CM and CMT based garment manufacturing business every negotiation between the brand and manufacturer revolves around the question of execution price, in fact, it refers to the model's execution time.

When the client’s time fit with the manufacturer’s time is ideal, but this is rarely the first.

timeSSD® provide the benchmark execution time for any working method and any garment style using the embedded motions time database.

The collaborative, social manufacturing capability of timeSSD® brings the substantial added value of it, comparing with similar software.

timeSSD® is installed in Microsoft Azure Cloud and this made it a…

Fabric spreading is a process of laying fabrics on the cutting table prior to the cutting process is taken place. In this article, I will discuss automatic spreading machines.

When I visit large size garment factories, I observed their cutting section is equipped with automatic machines with the latest technology including automatic spreading machine. They work on volume production, speed to market and efficient systems.

In mass garment production, several fabric plies are cut at a time. The quality of cut components, fabric consumption, and fabric wastage in the cutting process depends on how well spreading is done. If there are waves on the fabric layer, you will get defective cut component.

There are number of parameters a factory needs to follow in the fabric spreading process – like, fabric facing, edge control, fabric tension, lay height, end loss, and splicing etc.

Traditionally spreading is done manually where a number of helpers and spreaders are needed to draw the fabric, to…

The objective of introducing the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in the cotton farming to towel manufacturing processes, is to verify the origin of cotton at each stage of the manufacturing process to ensure an authentic final product.


To develop Wel-Track, the fibre tracking technology, Welspun has partnered with global forensic science company Oritain Global to develop the solution. They will use radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and customised software. It involved an investment of around $6 million (38.5 crore) and more than six months of rigorous efforts.

It has emerged as the first global textile entity to patent a fibre-tracking technology, turning adversity into opportunity.

Also See: RFID Technology for Apparel Manufacturing

Adversities happen in the world of business. When they looked into it (the crisis with the large customer), they felt that there were gaps. Today, they are proud to say they have Wel-Trak, the patented process, which helps t…

Question: I have started a small clothing startup to empower slum women, where we teach slum women how to make clothes then I give them employment or job-work at my center. I have 6 basic paddle foot machines and two electric sewing machines.
Can anyone please guide me how to track that which garment is made by which women so that we can tell her to rectify the mistakes which she is doing?
I have picked this question from OCS forum (which is closed now). I am answering this question after a long time after receiving this question.

Tracking of a worker who made which garment is a valid requirement for many reasons. You have mentioned one reason that you need to find the woman who made mistakes in a particular garment. If you can track that, you can give back the defective garment for repair work or tell her to rectify the defect. This information can be other ways too. Like, identifying women who need more training and skill development. You can also track who made how many garments an…

You know, the garment stitching is the core process in the apparel and fashion industry supply chain.

In apparel manufacturing industry, most garment manufacturers use the assembly line for making clothes and garments. In the assembly line, a number of sewing machines (including different types of sewing machines and non-sewing equipment) are placed in a line according to the process sequence requirement. Garment bundles are loaded at one end of the line and moved from one workstation to another, and finally stitched garments come out from the line. 

Define Line Layout When we talk about preparing a line layout, it means designing the presentation of workstations in an assembly and showing the flow of work from start to end. It can be a simple line diagram. See the following image. The rectangle boxes are indicating sewing workstation. The number marked inside the boxes are indicating operations sequence in the Operation Bulletin (OB) and arrows are showing the flow of work. The line l…

This is a guest submission from Yusuf Ahmed. Author has discussed Bangladeshi Apparel Industry -what to expect in 2018.

2017 was an amazing year for apparel manufacturing in Bangladesh.

There has been a massive rise in LEED-certified green factories. The Alliance and the Accord have shown immensely positive results, and the $50BN mark is closer than ever. Just take a look at the news coming out in the recent weeks: Bangladesh now exports $200MN worth of tailored apparel, and the country opened up the first prison-based apparel factory. 


2018 will prove to be a vital year for this industry. The Alliance and the Accord will be leaving after their tenure is up and it will be interesting to see how factories in Bangladesh have managed to overhaul their operations. Steps are already being taken to continue the progress the consortiums have made, with BGMEA planning to come up with their own as Bangladesh apparel manufacturers, and the government plans to look beyond that progress.

These a…

In the apparel manufacturing industry, a learning curve is made for the sewing operators' performance learning curve.

A learning curve of an operator is the performance growth of getting experience (time per unit) in a task. The learning curve can be drawn time per unit against cumulative repetitions or efficiency at work against cumulative repetitions.

When a new style is loaded to a line, sewing operators (machinists) take time to reach their maximum speed (or normal speed). A sewing operator takes higher time to stitch a garment when she starts working on a new style. After doing the same task for many times, the time taken to stitch the garment or an operation is reduced. It may be due to new operation (job), a different machine with different settings and guide or a different kind material need to handle.

Individual operators learning curve is normally prepared at the operator training stage. But you can even prepare learning curve for each and every sewing operator working i…

Wishing you a successful, healthy, and joyful new year!

For the New Year 2018, you might have prepared a list of resolutions.

I would suggest you add one more to your list. Start measuring factory Key Performance Indicators (KPI) (if you are not measuring yet). Start with measuring production floor KPI. By measuring the factory KPIs, you can see where you stand (factory performance level in various KPIs) and find improvement opportunities you have. From the KPI data, you can define a clear roadmap for this year 2018.

I am giving you the KPI measuring excel templates for free as a New Year gift from Online Clothing Study. Downloadit, copy it and modify the template as you wish. Most important implement it. 

I am writing tutorial, articles and publishing guides for the garment industry since 2011. Many said a lot of good words about my blog posts, my work, and books. But this is the first time I have seen a factory is practicing my guides, KPI tools and KPI dashboard templates for repor…

Ex-factory date is the date on which the supplier (here a garment manufacturer) needs to keep the shipment ready and need to move the shipment out from the factory and hand it over to the shipment forwarder. Packing and garment inspection need to be done prior to the ex-factory date.

According to the ex-factory date, the garment manufacturer plans its production schedule, pre-production and material sourcing schedule. The ex-factory date may or may not be the same date as the shipment date. But to the factory, ex-factory date is the shipment date.
Sometimes buyers want to keep shipment ready at the factory on the ex-factory date and plan for picking it later. Later they can pick and ship it together with other orders.

When I was working in a garment manufacturing factory, we used to get the ex-factory date from the buying house. Sometimes we were aware that shipment date mentioned by the buyer is different. Buying house keeps some days in their hand as a buffer. In case shipment gets …