A complete guideline for quality and production supervisor of Apparel Industry.

1. G ON
DEVELOP
MENT OF
SUPERVI
SOR
Metro Knitting and Dyeing Mills Ltd

2. TOPICS
 OBJECTIVE
 SUPERVISOR’S- ROLES AND
RESPONSIBILITIES.
 HARD SKILLS.
 LINE BALANCING.
 PERFORMANCE BOOSTING.

3.  Identifying & analyzing supervisor
development needs.
 Developing supervisor capabilities to support
the implementation of the management
strategies.
 Help supervisors to develop strategies to adopt
the change.
 Provide opportunities for technological
updating.

4. SUPERVIS
OR
 WHO IS SUPERVISOR ?
 RESPONSIBILITIES OF SUPERVISOR.
 ROLE OF SUPERVISOR.

5. A supervisor is “ a person
who instructs, directs, and
controls the workers in the
performance of their
duties”.
Supervisor is a KEY
person in any organization.
Supervisor is a interlink
between management and
workers.

6. Achieve company
goals – Produce a
quality product or
services, meet
delivery schedules
and minimize
waste.
Production –
Effective and
efficient
management of
personnel, time,
equipment,
material for
production.
Give job
instructions.
Assign work to
workers and
supervise them.
Maintain
equipment and
workplace.
Documentation

7. Training to Workers
 A good supervisor always train their
people for standard operation to
achieve line target and appropriate
quality.
 After training - Supervisor should
observe the workers and evaluate
them based on performance .
Communication
 A good supervisor always give clear
instruction to worker prior to any
work.
 Supervisor also listen to workers
about their problems and solve
accordingly.

8. Encourage Positive Behavior
 Motivate the workers.
 Always focus on behavior of workers.
 Recognize the employee
contributions.
 Always work in team
Job Analysis
 Supervisor should always do Job
analysis of subordinate workers to
find out the lacking's.
 Always follow SOP of each
operations.

9. Inspection
 Condition of machine.
 Condition of product.
 Workplace condition/ Housekeeping.
 Violation of safety rule.
 Violation of legal requirement /
Compliance.
Record Keeping
 Always keep record of
 Training documents.
 Counter sample / PP comments.
 PP meeting report.
 Inspection / Audit Report

10. QUALITY
CHECKING.
HOURLY
CHECKING.
LINE
BALANCING.
PERFORMANCE
BOOSTING.

11. When end customers or consumers
purchase a garment, they look for
quality first. So, to have a satisfied
customer, suppliers must keep only
quality product.
Generally, factory put quality check
points at the end of line and inline to
ensure that only quality pieces move to
the next process.

12. QUALITY CHECKING –
SEWING DEPARTMENT.
Checkpoints in the sewing departments are as
following-
• Inline inspection .
• Roaming inspection.
• Traffic light inspection system.
• End of line inspection or table checking.
• Audit of the checked pieces.

13. QUALITY CHECKING –
FINISHING DEPARTMENT.
Check points in finishing department consists-
• Initial finishing inspection.
• Final finishing Inspection.
• Internal final audit.

14. INTERNAL
FINAL
AUDIT
After garments are
packed up to certain
quantity, quality control
team/QS/NQC/GPQ do
audit of packed garments.
This process is carried out
to ensure that before
handing over shipment to
buyer QC

15. HOURLY
CHECKING
 Checking operator capacity hourly or bi-
hourly.
 Checking produce product quality process
wise.
 Compare actual operator’s hourly
production with their capacity.
 It helps in two ways –
(I)when operator’s capacity and product
quality is checked at regular interval they
will be under pressure.
(II) Supervisor start thinking on methods
how cycle time and defects can be reduced.
 Using the capacity data, you can move
ahead in balancing the line.
 Hourly production report

16. The Line Balancing is “to
design a smooth production
flow by allotting processes
to workers so as to allow
each worker to complete the
allotted workload within an
even time”.
It is a system where you
meet the production
expectations, and you can
find the same amount of
work in process in every
operation at any point in
the day

17. Leveling of workload throughout the line is very
important to improve capacity (resource) utilization.
No line should have excess work in process as
inventory.
IMPROVE LINE BALANCING
At time of line setting supervisor select operators for
the operation matching ,operator skill history and
skill required.
Following this method highly skilled operators are
selected for higher work content operations.

18. Once line is set supervisor monitor
capacity of workers at a regular
interval.
Once operator utilization is increased
through line balancing, we get extra
pieces and good quality product from
the same resources in defined time.

19.  Club operations where possible: Where there is higher capacity than the target
output, give that operator another operation with less work content. Considering
machine type and sewing thread colors.
 Shuffle operators ,Operations that have low work content use low performer there.
And where work content is higher use high performers.
 Reduce cycle time using work aids and attachments: To assist the operator in
handling parts during sewing, positioning cutting and disposing finished task,
work aids, guides or attachment can be used, provide operator with aids. It
reduces operation cycle time.

20. STEPS TO
ELIMINATE
BOTTLENE
CKS FROM
THE LINE.
Improve workstation layout and
improve methods.
Though improving method of
bottleneck operations supervisor can
do line balancing by adding more
operators at bottleneck operations.
Do extra work at bottleneck
operation

21. PERFORMA
NCE
BOOSTING.
Monitoring and correcting faulty operation
handling: There is a saying “Even best can be
improved”. So go to line and look for operator’s
working method and movements. Prepare a
check list for good methods and movements.
Hourly operator capacity check: Start checking
operator capacity hourly or bi-hourly. Compare
actual operator’s hourly production with their
capacity.
Conduct R&D for good quality product and
increase efficiency. R&D can be taken as
preparation stage for the bulk production.

22. PERFORMA
NCE
BOOSTING.
4. Use best possible line layout.
5. Scientific workstation layout: The workstation
layout defines from where an operator will pick up
work (garment components) and where she will
dispose stitched garment.
6. Reduce line setting time: The time lost in the initial
days (learning curve) brings down the average labor
productivity for whole style. Reason - lot of time is lost
during setting of the line for a new style. This reduces
overall machine productivity and line efficiency as well
as high risk of produce faulty quality product due to
lack of follow up.

23. PERFORMA
NCE
BOOSTING.
7. Use work aids, attachments, guides, correct pressure foots
and folders: These are some kinds of time saving devises that
facilitate operator to perform their work effectively with less
effort and improve product quality.
8. Continuous feeding to the sewing line.
9. Feed fault free and precise cut panel to line.
10. Training to sewing operators: Operators are main resources
in the apparel manufacturing. They are most valuable resource
to the company. So, factory must work on developing operator
skill where required. “Training is not cost but an investment”
said by many experts. Production and quality from an operator
depends on his skill level to the task.

24. PERFORMA
NCE
BOOSTING.
11. Using auto trimmer sewing machine (UBT)
to cut the extended thread of operation
automatically.
12. Inline quality inspection at regular interval:
Traffic light system is the most effective
inspection tool to reduce defect generation at
source. Less number of defective seam is made
less the time will be lost in repairing it.
13. Operator motivation: Operator’s will be the
most crucial part in productivity improvement.
If they are motivated, they will put enough
efforts on the work.