BODYNITSFACTORY REPORT

BRYAN YEO JIA WEI . 1201168J . TD07 . BEATRICE SIM YI SI . 1204073I . TD07

ASSIGNMENT 1 . APPERAL MANUFACTURING PROCESS

CONTENT

INTRODUCTION

1. COMPANY PROFILE2. APPAREL SUPPLY CHAIN3. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE (BASIC)4. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE (BODYNITS)

EVALUATION OF COMPANY

5. THE PROCESS (PRODUCTION METHOD)6. WORKING ENVIROMENT 7. TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY - STRENGHTS AND WEAKNESSES

CONCLUSION

8. BRYAN9. BEATRICE

COMPANY RESEARCH

Bodynits is a (ODM) original design manufacturing company which began as a family business. Over 20 years of working with stretch fabrics, Bodynits specializes in manufacturing active wear, stretch fabrics, swim, gymnasium and casual fashion.

Head-quartered in Singapore, Bodynits is an exemplary example on how a home grown company can grow to its current size through the core values of strong business ethics, reliability, transparency and corporate governance. Their expertise lies in manufacturing active wear, stretch fabrics, mainly gymnasium, swim, intimate and crossover/casual fashion.

While building offshore manufacturing facilities, Bodynits has maintain the same level of customer satisfaction through our expertise in global management. They observe strict local statutory compliance and international standards for labor law.

Investing heavily to new technologies, Bodynits is also able to collaborate design and samples with our customers, ensuring quick turn-around time. To support the entire manufacturing processes, they have established strong information flow and processes for the Headquarters and its manufacturing facilities.By 1985, new markets and higher volume in production required that the factory space be increased to 1,500 square feet. By 1987 it was 5,000 square feet and yet it soon became inadequate. In 1996 the company was occupying 20,000 square feet and was still crying out for more as it was burning at seams. Today, Bodynits international has manufacturing facilities in Singapore, China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

SINGAPORE

Bodynits s S$11 million headquarters and factory was officially opened in April 1984. The facility is specially geared towards the handling of highly innovative performance fabrics. It has 8 production lines of Eton Hanger System, which facilitates the movement of apparels across the factory and cuts production time by 40%.

The facility also encompasses a Product Creation Centre, Embroidery Services, Takatori Automated Cutting machine & Lab facilities.

In our Singapore factory, Bodynits have a staff strength of over 500 and a production capacity of over 220,000 pieces per month. With the signing of the Singapore-US FTA, more of its production have been exported to the United States.

Indonesia Bintan and Batam

Bintan Bersatu Apparel is set up in 1998 in Bintan Industrial Estate. With over 600 workers and organised in 11 lines, Bintan Bersatu Apparel (BBA1) is highly reliable and consistent in quality. It has in house printing, embroidery capabilities and using Takatori Automated Cutting machine.

Since the opening of Batam Factory (BBA2) in 2005, the plant has engaged about 700 workers who are organized into 21 production lines. In additional to in-house embroidery and printing facilities, the facility has its own Takatori Automated Cutting machine and lab facilities.

BBA 1 & 2 has a capacity of 500,000 pieces per month.

China Shantou

Yong May Garment Factory is our oldest overseas factory and it was established in 1993 at Shantou, a port city about 360 km north of Hong Kong. Shantou has always enjoyed a long tradition of good embroidery skills. With over 500 highly-trained workers in 7 production lines (Knit) & 4 production lines (Woven) and 100,000 sq. ft of production floor, Yong May is self-equipped with in-house embroidery, Takatori Automated Cutting machine, Lab facilities and printing facilities.

Yong May Garment Factory has a capacity of 200,000 pieces per month.

Vietnam

Bodynits Vietnam (BIVN), was established in Ho Chi Minh City in 2006. It is strategically located near to major highways, industrial hubs and container port.

Over 1200 skilled employees in 20 production lines are engaged to produce a monthly capacity of 300,000 pieces of garments. In-house embroidery, heat transfer and printing capabilities are available in this facility.A balanced and systematic warehouse inventory, material inspection, precision cutting, controlled process manufacturing, in-process audit and in-line packing are some of the key processes which contribute to the success of the facility.

Bodynits products are exported to major US sport brands and retailers. Their working procedures and environment are in compliance with customers quality and safety standards.

The company has also established their visions, mission and value.

THEIR MISSION

1. To excel in active lifestyle business run by a team of highly dedicated and motivated people

THEIR VISION

1. Your partner in active lifestyle apparel

THEIR VALUES

1. Professionalism and excellence in our business and rewards for our stakeholders

APPAREL SUPPLY CHAIN

A supply chain consists of all parties involved, directly or indirectly, in fulfilling a customer request. The supply chain not only includes the manufacturer and suppliers, but also transporters, warehouses, retailers, and customers themselves. Within each organization, such as manufacturer, the supply chain includes all functions involved in receiving and filling a customer request.

The term supply chain conjures up images of product or supply moving from suppliers to manufacturers to distributors to retailers to customers along a chain. It is important to visualize information, funds, and product flows along both directions of this chain. The term supply chain may also imply that only one player is involved at each stage. In reality, a manufacturer may receive material from several suppliers and then supply several distributors. Thus, most supply chains are actually networks. It may be more accurate to use the term supply network or supply web to describe the structure of most supply chains.

A typical supply chain may involve a variety of stages. These supply chain stages include:

Customers

Retailers

Wholesalers/Distributors

Manufacturers

Component/Raw material suppliers

The entire apparel supply chain consists of every organization starting from initial fiber supplier to consumer purchasing apparel products for final consumption. Each organization comprises various functional domains, as manufacturing, planning, marketing etc.

Bodynits Supply Chain

Bodynits forges long-term relationships with international brands, in turn, consolidating the supply chain for these big conglomerates. Bodynits serve apparel production for these clients with greater value added services, from design development to manufacturing in bulk. This allows both client and the ODM, bodynits, to benefit through larger share of profits in the textiles and apparel trade.

Client place down order (by International Sportwear brands such as Adidas, Puma, Reebok etc.) > Bodynits develop design >

Apparel supply chain exists primarily in three configurations to suit overall business environment. Effective management of supply chain by responding quickly to market-demand while keeping optimum inventory, is more preferable to only efficient management of supply chain by minimizing inventory without fast response to consumers demand.

Bodynits have invested in technologies and processes to improve cash-to-cash cycles and reduce inventories. It also actively manages the supply chain and protects environmental and social interests to the expectations of consumers, upholding clients brand reputation and image.

The apparel sector is in general more labour intensive, and variation in factor intensity according to products is much smaller than that of the textiles sector. As this sector is more downstream and closer to the consumers, the designing, branding and marketing functions become crucial.

BASIC ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Most organizations use a diagram called anorganizational chartto depict their structure. These organizational charts show how firms structures are built using two basic building blocks: vertical linkages and horizontal linkages.

Vertical linkagestie supervisors and subordinates together. These linkages show the lines of responsibility through which a supervisor distributes authority to subordinates, oversees their activities, evaluates their performance, and guides them toward improvement when necessary. Every supervisor except for the person at the very top of the organization chart also serves as a subordinate to someone else. IMAGE OF VERTICAL STRUCTURE Most executives rely on theunity of commandprinciple when mapping out the vertical linkages in an organizational structure. This principle states that each person should only report directly to one supervisor. If employees have multiple bosses, they may receive conflicting guidance about how to do their jobs. The unity of command principle helps organizations to avoid such confusion.

Horizontal linkagesare relationships between equals in an organization. Often these linkages are called committees, task forces, or teams. Horizontal linkages are important when close coordination is needed across different segments of an organization.

IMAGE OF HORIZONTAL STRUCTUREORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF BODYNITS

Based on the trip to Bodynits, I understand that the company has chosen to stick to the method of using a horizontal organizational structure.

WHY?

The company has different committees. Bodynits has a total of five floors consisting of:

Design Development (production) creation center (pattern drafting)

Product engineering (manufacturing),

Quality assurance (testing)

Warehouse

There would be an inspector in each of these communities to ensure that at every stage the product has gone through the right processes with the desired outcome, once the products have been seen by these inspectors they would then be handed down to the following committee to go through the following procedures.

PRODUCTION PROCESS

Development Office

STEP 1 : Drafting Pattern drafters use the Gerber program, which is a program similar to Illustrator but with different tools. This allows the client and the Bodynit's design development department to create designs for a new apparel line. The clients requirements are then communicated both ways. At times, clients IMAGE OF DRAFTING WITH GERBER PROGRAMwould provide a sample piece for the department to tweak and draft out an adapted design. The drafter always start out with a basic pattern, constructing specified measurements and customized pattern pieces if the design requires more sophistication. The drafter then traces the pattern and finally, adding seam allowances.The drafters would then list down the details and the design should include with a 'tag pack' (along with a front and back view of the design). Once this is done, the designers will give them their design stipulations and the drafter would make the drafting pattern accordingly.

A basic pattern my take 15 to 30 minutes to draft depending on the complexity of the garment. The more complex it is, the more time needed to complete drafting the pattern. A total of three styles can have their drafting patterns completed in a day.

STEP 2 : V-stitcher

Once the drafters have come out with the desired patterns the drafters then share their patterns to the V-stitcher. The V-stitcher is a program that enables the client to view the finished garment even before the prototype has been complete. This allows the client to visually see the product with its details and embellishments. The program also helps identify potential miscalculations in the patterns allowing the drafters to correct them.

IMAGE OF V-STITCHER PROGRAM

STEP 3 : Grading

Every piece has a base size according to the brand's stipulations. Using the given specification sheet, grading is done for the other sizes (Small, medium, large, extra large). After grading is done, the amount set for production in bulk is planned and verified. ssdsdasdaddadasdsdasdasdas IMAGE OF PATTERN GRADING ON GERBER PROGRAM

STEP 4 : Marker plotting After grading, the plotter would then pass the necessary measurements, details and information to the plotter. The plotter would fit all the necessary patterns on the screen using the Gerber software. By doing this, the company would be able to save cost as the amount of fabric needed has been calculated and the use of space would have been optimized, lowering the amount of fabric wastage. MARKER PLOTTIGN WITH GERBER PROGRAM

Once the patterns have been plotted out the information is sent by the computer to the plotting machine that prints of the patterns on plotting paper. This enables mass amounts of patterns to be plotted out without worrying about the lack off time.

Bodynits (Singapore) currently uses a Flatbed plotter and Gerber plotter. (slower than flatbed fast save space)

CUTTING DEPARMENT

STEP 5 : Relaxing

Due to the stretchable nature of the fabric (spandex) that Bodynits works with, the fabrics has to be relaxed by going through the Fabric Stabilizer Machine. The purpose for this is to help prevent the shrinking of fabric allowing the optimum use of the material. Once the fabric has gone through this machine, the fabric is then piled up and left to rest for a minimum of 24 hours. However, the lack of time causes apparel manufacturers to leave them to rest for 4 to 5 hours.FABRIC GOING THROUGH FABRIC STABILIZER MACHINE

STEP 6 : Spreading and cutting

Fabrics are laid in a particular manner, depending on the fabric type and design style. This process is done on a specific table, where the fabric is sucked on to the table by a vacuum so that the fabric would not be able to move around during cutting. Cutting the fabric can be done in two ways manual and automated ManualManual cutting is the cutting of fabric using a hand-guided electric knife or rotary cutter. However, in order for this to be done the user has to skilled or trained in using the rotary knife. Typically, only trained and experienced cutters are hired, as such a method of cutting is a niche expertise. Rotary cutting cannot cut corners so marker plotters must be careful

IMAGE OF ROTARY KNIFE

AutomatedAutomated cutting is the process whereby the fabric is laid on the table after spreading, with a piece of plastic over the fabric. The use of this plastic film is to vacuum compress the layers of fabric and also create additional friction making the fabric not move around during the cutting process. This method of cutting allows the most accurate cutting and least amount of fabric wastage. IMAGE OF AUTOMATED CUTTER

STEP 7 : Sorting and Bundling

Once the fabric has been cut the pieces are then sorted out according to the batches. Dye lot has to be matched to ensure no colour variants.

IMAGE OF BUNDLING AND SORTING

STEP 8 : Sewing & Assembly

In this department, the number of garments ready to be delivered and the stations each worker is assigned to is listed on a board where the staff would have to check a follow the assigned roles. Bodynits use the following flow process where line balancing is crucial as the speed of each station is recorded to maximize production rate. One seamstress is only responsible for one portion of the garment. This continues until all the other parts of the garment have been completed through the use of the Eton conveyor system in use. This system helps to decrease the level of confusion among the seamstresses and it also helps efficiency, as the seamstress would not have to move to and fro to collect and to pass down. IMAGE OF ETON CONVEYER SYSTEM

As certain designs require embellishments like trims and buttons. The finish garments lacking in those details will then be manually passed to the trims station to be affixed. Despite the trims, the transferring of logos through heat transfer. However, only clients who have requested their logo transfer by heat will go through the process.IMAGE FOR HEAT TRANSFER

STEP 9 : Quality Inspection At the end of the production line is a quality inspection station. At this station, the inspection staff will check the accuracy and trims the finished garment with reference to the specification sheet provided. They would inspect for the zipper length, heat-transferring defects etc. Garments that fail the inspection will be deposited in a basket (as shown below). Garments that do pass the inspection will then go on to packaging. The completed batch of garments are bundled with a ticket that is used for payment purposed, control processes and facilitation of quality checks. The Audit Team has to measure these cut panels for consistency. QUALITY INSPECTERS CHECKING GERMENTS FOR DEFECTS

STEP 10 : Quality assurance This process is to help the company identify problems in the garment and to ensure that clients specified standards by regulation are met.

OVEN TESTThis test is to test colour migration. This allows the company to assess colouration, durability and colour migration. It also allows them to simulate conditions in a container during transportation. Compressed in warm and humid conditions, heat transferred prints may appear on the packaging. It also ensures that the packaging would not melt when left in the warehouse for distributers. I IMAGE OF OVEN TEST

LAUNDERING TEST The apparel products are washed in both open top and open screen washing machines using the brands of soup powder specified by clients. This tests for the degree of discolouration of the garment.

IMAGE OF CHECKLIST FOR LAUNDERING TEST

COLOUR MATCHING TEST

This test is done to check the colour tone under daylight, normal indoor light, store lighting. This test can be carried out using a light box. The test is usually also done after the Laudering Test and Colour Migration Test. One reason for the importance of this evaluation is because Bodynits uses spandex It is done because Spandex content discolours a lot under prolonged sunlight, turning yellowish especially on whites. IMAGE OF LIGHTBOX FOR COLOUR MATCHING TEST

STEP 11 : Packing and distribution

Once the garments and products have been manufactured according to the clients desired outcome and has gone through the necessary inspections and quality checks, The garments that passed these inspections are then packed and ship or distributed to the companys client. From there on the garments are then distributed to their stores worldwide.

PACKAGING FOR SHIPMENT

PRODUCTION METHODS

Bodynits applies the unit production system (UPS) of garments production. This is a type of line layout that uses an overhead transporter system to move garment components from workstation to workstation for assembly. All the parts for a single garment are advanced through the production line together by means of a hanging carrier (Eton Hanging System) that travels along an overhead conveyor. After sewing their respective portion, the garment would be passed on to the seamstress in charged of the next sewing step. The overhead rail garments production system consists of the main conveyor and accumulating rails for each workstation of garments. The overhead conveyor operates much like a railroad track. Carriers are moved along the main conveyor and switched to an accumulating rail at the workstation where an operation is to be performed. At the completion of an operation the operator presses a button, and the carrier moves on to the next operation.

WORKING ENVIRONMENT

Bodynits invests in sewing machinery and systems to ensure that products are manufactured not only with quality but also ethically. Hence, the factory operates in compliance with the local legal requirements of Singapore as well as within the requirement of the brands/retailers/customers.

The company provides the staff with a conducive work environment, the facilities are set in an organized infrastructure where the space has been moderated appropriately and commendable standards of neatness and hygiene has been observed.

Also, training is offered to all members of staff where there is no bias against nor towards foreign workers. The training is to develop the workers soft skills, including training workers to work well in a team-oriented environment. This is to encourage employee self-direction and responsibility, and the development of teamwork and leadership. The staff is also motivated to internally set individual goals and targets as well as for the teams performance.

,We can see well executed operations being maintained under the collective drive of experienced managers and dedicated local supervisors.

Through the efficient work environment, the factory is able to run on lean production concept and have adaptive vertical operations such as Auto-cad product development to respond quickly to changes on the ground.

TOOLS AND MACHINARY

Bodynits possesses tools and machinery that help in reducing cost and time. Such machinery are the fabric stabilization machine, hand guided electric rotary knife, automated cutter, v-stitcher program as well as the Gerber program, Eton conveyer belt system.

With the use of the hand guided electric rotary knife and the automated cutter, it helps reduce the labour cost as not as many staff are needed in the cutting process this also allows the patterns to be cut accurately reducing the chance of fabric wastage due to errors.

The use programs like Gerber and V-stitcher helps the company and staffs determine the amount of fabric that is needed as well as reducing the amount of fabric wastage and fallout.

The Eton conveyer system allows the company to be more organized as well as to be on task. This then lowers the rate of confusion among staff as they would be given respective roles and they would have to stick to these respective responsibilities there are assigned.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

STRENGTHS

TOOLS AND MACHINERY STRENGHT

V-stitcher Program-accelerates product and design development by offering true to life garment modeling.--allowing Bodynit's design developers to visually communicate the design ideas with clients.-improves product quality by its true-to-life garment modeling capabilities, the-Accurate measurements and desired outlook of the garment can be attained.-Reduces development cost as patterns can be reviewed before physical garment prototype is produced, saving lead time.

Gerber Program- changes can be made during the construction of the prototype if flaws and errors are present- not as laborious as correcting error manually- ability to generate accurate costing estimates- detailed specification can be obtained and done

Fabric stabilizer machine- reduces the residual shrinkage of knitted fabrics- uniform and flat selvedges

Hand guided electric rotary knife- High productivity as large amounts of fabric lay can be cut- Cheaper compared to a automated cutter

Automated cutter - holds the workpeice in the right position allowing greater accuracy during cutting- produce precise cuts in lesser time than that required by conventional cutting machines

Eton converey system- enable flexible material handling eliminating manual transport allowing more productivity- ensures a optimal working flow providing time for the addition of value to the products- flexible system can be modified to changes in the production line

WEAKNESSES

TOOLS AND MACHINERY WEAKNESSES

V-stitcher Program- costly about $10.000- not user friendly, only for one user

Gerber Pogram- user has to be trained

Fabric stabilization machine-

Hand guided electric knife- high speed of the machine may lead to risk of damage- faulty knife may damage fabric- constant replacement of knife or would injure operator

Automated cutter- high power consumption causing higher electric bills

Eton system- if there is a hold up at one station the others would have to wait causing lead time to be affected