Niddle

Innovation Name: Niddle

Category: Best Innovation in Fashion & Apparel

Company: TEAM Group

The content of this case study was written by the representatives of TEAM Group

 

In the production floors of RMG factories, each line requires a dedicated input man to ensure on-time raw materials input into the sewing lines. This manual process wastes at least 3-4 hours per input man per day just for moving across different sections to get the things done on-time. On the other hand, production managers and industrial engineers strive to achieve line wise productivity targets while maintaining the quality. Due to lack of Real-time information, it is difficult for the production manager to achieve the production and quality target on time. 

To solve the above-mentioned challenges, Team introduced its in-house software Niddle (which was built by none but the IT wing of the Team Group) in its modern jacket factory 4A Yarn Dyeing Ltd. The Niddle which is a combination of Intelligent Inventory Management System and IoT enabled Inline Productivity Tracking, has transformed requisition and material collection process of the factory simpler & faster, aided better monitoring of the line production and prescribes efficient line balancing techniques; and thus, eventually improved productivity and efficiency of the factory to a great extent.

 

The Idea

Factories in Bangladesh follow a manual system for assessing the productivity of workers. This gives the persons who supervise the assessment the opportunity to manipulate the productivity rates of workers and more than not they resort to nepotism to cite the productivity rates as upon this a skilled worker and their salary grades are determined accordingly. Moreover, the manual data shared by Line-Chiefs/Line Supervisor does not provide any in-depth line wise information which is a major hurdle for factories to achieve optimum production and quality targets on time. 

‘Niddle’ by digitizing the process while solving the above problems at the same time improved the productivity, efficiency and transparency of the factory. 

 

Execution

Input men submit the material requisition into the Intelligent Input Management System of ‘Niddle’. According to the inputs, respective sections (cutting and warehouse) receive the requirements and prepare a bundle for input men. With the Intelligent Traffic Light System of ‘Niddle’, input men can track whether the materials are ready for pick up. System also generates an Auto Alert and escalates to the production manager in case the materials are not provided to input men on time.

IoT enabled Inline Productivity Tracking device of ‘Niddle’ is installed across all the machines of the sewing lines. Smart screens and sensors count cycle time of each process & workers’ productivity. The solution aids better monitoring of the line production and prescribes efficient line balancing techniques. 

The system helps the QC Manager and Production Manager to track the production output along with defects and reworks. Live hit-map of the system helps the quality manager to identify the processes which are producing defective outputs. The solution helps the production manager to track floor capacity vs productivity on a real-time basis which makes the decision-making process efficient.

 

Result and Impact

• Reduced required input-man in the floor by 50%. 
• Helped to increase the efficiency of 4A Yarn Dyeing Ltd by 15%.
• Improved the lives of skilled workers. 
• Enhanced transparency of the factory.