COMPETITIVE INNOVATION PRESENTATION – THE MAIN AGENDA AT OGTC’S 11TH CONFERENCE
Okhla Garment & Textile Cluster (OGTC) organised its 11th international conference on Apparel and Home Textiles on 31st October, 2015, at India Habitat center with the theme of ‘Competitive Innovation- How to do it Better’ supported by Richa Global Exports and Optitex. Exporters, buyers, media delegates, service providers, students and many others from different regions marked their presence at the conference. The conference was followed by the presentation, case studies, sessions and workshops on different issues and prospects of the industry. The sessions were based on value creation, merchandising, challenges, emerging opportunities and areas of improvisation required in the garment and textile industry of India.
The main focus of the conference was to improve the production cycle of the Indian apparel industry. The first session was headed by Prashant Agarwal, Co-Founder & MD, Wazir Advisors Pvt. Ltd. The first Innovationpresentation under his session was given by Nidhi Sood of Madura Garments on ‘People’s Engagement Practices and Rewards Recognition Systems’, in which she adviced about how and why motivation is required for the benefit of industry? She was followed by Surender Jain, Business Director, Wazir Advisors Pvt. Ltd., who emphasized on the different aspects of apparel industry. The session ended with a presentation of Aishwarya Gupta, NIFT who informed about the pre and post manufacturing through different practical aspects.
The second session focused on the value creation, quality and new strategies for customers in the apparel industry. The first presentation of the session began with A.N. Singh, Management Consultant, in which he shared insights about lean manufacturing process for production. He stated that today the apparel industry is focusing more on creating profits rather than creating value amongst customers which is pulling the industry back. While sharing the facts he quoted, “Create value and profits will follow you.” He also informed, “We can create value by following three fundamentals that includes ‘Purpose’ i.e. “Are we running an organization just to make money”; ‘Process’ i.e. “Are the procedures and strategies to meet the requirements of customers are justified; and lastly ‘People’ who play a very important role and are engaged in that process. People are very important because if they are not aware of the procedure and the strategies to be followed then their purpose will fail.” He further discussed about wastages in garment manufacturing, including the wastage of inventory, motion wastage, over production wastage, over processing wastage and many more which can be reduced by adapting lean manufacturing process.
Discussing about the challenges of apparel industry, he said the biggest challenge is innovation and creativity which is the missing element of Indian apparel industry as we are focusing more towards making money instead of creating value, but we forget that the value of the products makes it valuable. Supporting the same he quoted the lines of Warren Buffett, “Price is what you pay but value is what you get.”A.N. Singh shares, “Value is a capability provided to a customer through a product as per the specification that includes QSEP means quality, speed of delivery, experience during product life cycle and price.” He added, “Apparel is made on the basis of human personality and its value which comprises of ecological value, intellectual value, emotional value and physical value and according to me a company that focuses on competition instead of creating value vanishes after sometime.” He also shared the management techniques to enhance customer value by design, Kazo analysis, quality function deployment, six sigma, lean manufacturing and ZED maturity model i.e. zero defect zero effect.
On the conclusion of his presentation he said that the change of PSP that includes improvement of ‘Process’ capability, improvement of value stream velocity in ‘Systems’ and improvement of commitment, competence and vision of the ‘People’ through knowledge, skills and desire are the critical areas of focus for the industry.
He was followed by Naveen Chopra of Aglie Group, who highlighted the impact of change. He informed, “Countries like Vietnam have reported a significant growth in the apparel sector and at present it is ranked sixth, after China, EU, Hong King, Turkey and Bangladesh whereas Indian exports that are projected to be US $ 18bn in 2015 is likely to fall behind Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico and rank ninth in the world.” “In current scenario domestic market is serviced 90% by domestic manufactures, but now with the increase in number of FTA’s (Foreign Trade Agreements) and cheaper imports, imports may increase and to meet these requirements, there is going to be a steep increase in machine and corporate men,” added he. He further added, “The industry has seen high growth in the innovative products like performance apparels, nano technology, specialized industrial and medical wear, etc.” Discussing about the lean wastages Naveen Chopra also guided the industry players on how to improve productivity and reduce wastages. He said, “There is a need to be process driven instead of being dependent on others. Provide adequate infrastructure to ensure adequate monitoring and train, motivate and involve the team for high productivity.”
“Collection and analysis of data in decision making, investment not only in technology but also in team, encouraging low cost automation and out of the box thinking, reward and recognition for good work, rather than reprimanding for poor work, following ZED maturity model and many such steps needs to be taken care of, said Tony Uppal, President, OGTC.
Another informative presentation was given by Dr. Archana Gandhi, Associate Professor, Department of Fashion Technology, NIFT who shared her research on pre and post merchandising, an important segment of apparel industry. She discussed the points on the basis of which merchandising performance parameters are calculated that includes 74% on the basis of their understanding of raw materials, 73% on dynamic product costing, 69% on knowledge of garment manufacturing, 47% on help plan and schedule production capacity and resources. She further emphasized on the importance of merchandiser’s performance in supply chain competitiveness. She also mentioned, “Merchandisers should be aware of their job profile and their responsibilities and on the other hand the management should also keep a regular system of appraisal of KRAs (Key Result Area) on a routine basis to motivate their employees.” Abhishek Kapoor, Principal Consultant, Wazir Advisors Pvt. Ltd. said, “Indian Apparel export industry is facing a lot of challenges with continuous increase in labour cost, energy and decrease in FOB value, profit margins and tough competition from Bangladesh factories. Lack of skill for high fashion garments, repeat orders from present customers with competitive price, lack of optimum quality level to face any customer, customers returns, charge backs, insufficient sales at customer end and pickup delays which leads to air shipments and are affecting the exports.”
While concluding the conference Uppal said, “We are facing a lot of challenges and today survival has become difficult, almost 11 countries are getting benefits of the Free trade agreement signed with EU and the US.” “According to me instead of blaming any of the departments we should work on our own weaknesses and the need is to change the system as well as the people from top to bottom,” added he. An organization can be run by anyone so rather than focusing on running the organization; we should focus on how to build an organization. The conference ended with the announcement of date of next conference by R C Kesar, Conference Chairman, OGTC on 15th October, 2016.