
As fashion embraces the digital age, the apparel industry is transforming to a new age with more automation and agility. Apparel manufacturers in Sri Lanka have come a long way. Where they started and improved to achieve productivity and certain best efficiency levels in the world. Companies that do not prioritize investments in data collection and analysis will be left behind. Those who do not engage in technology and processes to enable smooth manufacturing are at the highest risk. The journey beyond the digital age is the question now, how do we transform our businesses to take it to the next level?
As our industry faces a new type of consumer and a marketplace that has shifted from manual and traditional to connected and digital, best-in-class production performance has become essential. With the help of automation, the cutting room has become the heart of the manufacturing facility. Most importantly to achieve operational excellence and reduce costs. Therefore, optimizing the cutting room is necessary. Today fashion companies demand more variety, customization with faster results, delivering these benefits inconsistently can lead the business to less.
Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is one of the better-known manufacturing metrics. However, apparel manufacturers can use the cutting room to evaluate and improve performance. This performance indicator continues to gain in popularity as manufacturers seek to quantify plant, manufacturing line, and machine-level performance and find ways each area can be improved. OEE is measured by three distinct values. Machine availability, performance, and quality.
In other words, it means “Producing the Right number of Good pieces at the Right speed.”
Manually calculating and monitoring OEE metrics can get complicated. With the latest addition of dashboard to Lectra cutting room 4.0, measuring OEE is just a few fingertips away.
Moreover, the dashboard Monitors KPIs based on 3 main areas, namely Production performance, Production Quantities, and Production Times. You can detect machine behavior anomalies and get real-time alerts for critical errors. It even has made it convenient to establish KPIs for your team with the help of actionable data and identify areas of improvement.
How does Lectra dashboard help OEE calculation?
01 AVAILABILITY
Firstly, we measure availability by dividing total cutting time by opening time.
This KPI takes into account the time for which the equipment was available for production after subtracting unplanned and planned stops. Most importantly many manufacturers are alarmed to find out how less time it takes to cut once they eliminate the positioning and waiting time, offloading time, and interruption times.
02 PERFORMANCE
Secondly, Performance is measured by dividing the number of pieces cut per cutting hour by the maximum number of pieces that could be cut per cutting hour. As shown the actual capacity in the room is an additional capacity by improving performance or availability.
On the other hand, performance is taken into account in anything that causes the manufacturing process to run at anything less therefore the optimum expected rate results primarily in slow cycles and small stops that last only a few minutes.
However Small stops slow cycles can be difficult to track so especially if you’re using paper-based processes. In other words, cycles run so quickly therefore is not enough time for manual logging of data.
03 QUALITY
Thirdly quality is a trade-off between the number of plies and the maximum speed of the machine. This will help maintain the cut parts.
Quality measures the number of cut pieces that meet quality standards versus the number of pieces that require reworking.
In conclusion, Lectradashboard lets you understand your operations at a glance in an easy-to-understand visual format. With data, it can quickly identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions that will help the cutting room goals. As the sole representative of Lectra in Sri Lanka, team Apparel Technologies will strive to be the strategic partner in your success and innovate continuously to support your goals.
Need help measuring your OEE in your cutting room? Call us +94 76 359 0922