Handling of InterPlant Fabric Material

1
Handling of Inter-Plant Fabric Material

• HKUST/Stanford
• Global Project Coordination
• January 2009

2
Background Esquel

• An integrated apparel manufacturing company from
  cotton field to retail stores
• Supports several major brands
• Manufacturing process
• From mill plant to cutting, trucks with
  centralized warehouse
• 17 steps
• Low efficiency, high labor cost, low accuracy,
  slow response time

3
Objective

• Identify and recommend a total system solution
  for its inter-plant material flow
• Roll handling, transport, tracking and
  identification
• Technical and economic feasibility analysis to
  improve productivity
• Reduce cost, ensure on-time delivery, reduce
  fabric damage
• Recommendation to include costing analysis,
  practical automated and/or automated handling,
  storage and transport method

4
Scope

• Inter-plant fabric handling system
• transport, inspection, finishing in mill plant
  (not export freight/logistics)
• Cutting machines in cutting plant
• Warehouse location analysis, if necessary
• Outsourcing consideration is excluded
• Inventory management is excluded

5
Preliminary issues

• Handling and loading mechanism
• Fabric roll efficiency
• Unit load design
• Best handling machines (pallet/forklift/truck)
• Loading and unloading equipment design
• Buffer area layout milling and cutting
• Buffer storage for type of fabric for both
  milling and cutting

6
Preliminary issues

• Fabric flow network design (flows/nodes/buffers)
• Fabric flow within mill plant (from
  inspection/finishing to loading)
• Fabric flow within cutting plant (from unloading
  to storage to cutting)
• Network design among multiple mills and multiple
  cutting plants
• Inter-plant fabric routing design
• Network design

7
Preliminary issues

• Storage
• Storage design for cost effective location,
  retrieval, handling and storage
• Locating and retrieval mechanism
• Intra-warehouse fabric moving
• Identification techniques
• Damage prevention approach

8
Preliminary issues

• Transportation devices
• Truck types
• Transportation rate
• Truck carriage design
• Other devices?

9
Preliminary issues

• Economic Analysis
• Total system economic analysis
• Operating cost analysis handling, warehousing,
  transport, damage, etc.
• Sensitivity analysis e.g., labor cost
  sensitivity and contract negotiation

10
Deliverables

• Operational flow and descriptions of the proposed
  handling, storage, transport methods for the new
  inter-plant fabric handling system
• Total economic analysis of the proposed plant
  system
• Competitive advantage of proposed fabric handling
  system against status quo (manual handling
  system) payback analysis, ROI, and other metrics