Are you LEAN in Product Development???

Written by: Arturo Rodriguez
[TC]² Latin America
www.tc2.com

I had the pleasure during the past edition of the Apparel Sourcing Show of giving a presentation about two basic concepts for our apparel industry. The first one is the beginning of the productive chain for any garment… that is, where ideas are “born” to later be transformed into a reality: product development.

The second concept in my presentation referred to LEAN. The combination of both concepts makes a perfect “fitting”; let’s see why:

• Product development – if we define it as the series of activities that start with perception of a market opportunity and end with production, sale and delivery of a product, then you will understand its extreme importance in the productive chain of a garment.
  Much has been said that a good design of a garment (part of a product’s development) makes the difference. That is true that not only in the strict fashion sense, but because it also influences that such garment be “friendly” at the time it is being produced. Because a product that is born crooked… will never reach sales!
• Lean – concept born in post Second World war Japan due to the need of producing rationally, specifically in the Toyota company. Japanese could not afford the luxury of wasting at the time of production (they did not had the abundant resources Americans had in the 50’s). Therefore in a simple – but quite graphic manner – we can define that Japanese rationality saying that Lean is “Performance without Waste”. Although Japanese started applying it out of need – and without the intention of baptizing it with the world Lean – they are credited with creating that concept.

If we look at the time a typical production cycle of a garment takes, we notice that the biggest obstacle for the cycle to be shorter is located precisely in the product development area! There is a very graphic expression about this: “they cut me to be rich and left me basted”, because how often due to inefficient product development garments are left “basted” or in the best of cases they are produced at a high cost of time and money.

Then, why not apply Lean principles to product Development? Maybe because many of us concentrate mainly in the sewing part, thinking that is where we find the possibility of ‘saving” time and money. And although this is partly acceptable, the truth is we cannot compare the days a garment remains in the sewing area with the months spent while it is going through Product Development.

In a typical garment life cycle, 70% of thee time is spent in product development while only 30% corresponds to the specific manufacturing part of it. How can this be? Traditionally, product development – in the clothing industry – goes through the following activities:

• Trend, product and sales research
• Sketches/photos/copies
• Sales forecast
• Manufacturing decisions
• Fabric samples
• Color selection
• Garment sample
• Line review and approval
• Sample for adjustments
• Prototype evaluation
• Placing manufacturing orders

Many activities, if not managed adequately, produce waste of time and/or money. The Japanese, who have “perfection” in their DNA classify the “Muda” (waste in their language) into 8 categories:

 

 

What if we look at some examples of how to detect those leaks of time/money in product development and thus be able to execute Lean in that area?

Let’s start with a very obvious one: Movement; we can ask ourselves the following questions:

• Location of the sample area and fabric warehouse: are they close to one another?
• Where do fitting trials take place?

Does anybody like waiting? Of course not! Imagine how much time is lost (wasted) when we are waiting for an e-mail or a call from the boss to authorize – for example – taking  out a special fabric for a sample (and all because of not having foreseeing establishment of a system that does not depend only on one person!)

An example of 21 Century Muda is Computer Disconnection that is generated when a sample’s information reaches the Design Department in a format that does not allow interface with one of the size gradation systems and therefore we need to reenter all the information.

Here a double-killing is generated, as not only time is lost but the opportunity for mistakes is created when manually reentering information required. The Japanese have also catalogued as computer disconnection the labor environment that does not encourage team work and therefore “hinders” staff initiative… how about that?

We could continue with more examples, but what if we talk about how to prevent all this Muda? For this purpose in Lean there are a series of tools that might help us:

• Kanban (the concept of establishing maximums and minimums on inventories of resources required for the task)
• The 5 S or putting into practice the concepts of organize/correct/clean/normalize/institute
• Visual administration (WOW! Anything more to say?)
• Kaizen (always trying to improve the process in a continuous manner)

Additionally, we must not forget technology, especially all that is related to the digital. Starting with a tri-dimensional vision of a human body, turning it into an avatar that looks like a real person and with his/her exact measurements, dressing it with a (digital) garment, see the fall of the fabric when the avatar starts to gain movement and finally approving that sample, all in the world of the internet… that is Lean! Here the double gain is in the time savings of having to send physical samples and of course in not wasting resources (fabric, labor sewing, etc.) because everything was done in the Digital world.

Lean, in the Product Development field is achieved applying this combination of order and discipline principles, administration tools, digital technology and most of all, common sense.

Let’s think what would happen if a company starts product development once design and marketing staff has defined an opportunity and a niche to target. And what is we start evaluating the different alternatives measuring costs and trying to reach the objective price even before starting to do trials through an effective pre-cost evaluation system, and from there start with a group of experts trying to have a viable garment? Well, as I always say… stitch by stitch: that is how a great garment is produced!