The logistics category was defined by the Institute of Logistics in 1998 as the strategic management of the supply chain, which includes demand, production, distribution, and waste management, along with the activities accompanying this: transport, warehousing, and information technology. During the same period, a breakthrough occurred in the development of logistics management methods. The following methods emerged:
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interfunctional, utilizing management tools: cost calculation, logistics service, and inventory management
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interorganizational, consisting of the coordination of operations carried out by various organizations (taking into account different organizational cultures, values, structures, organizational procedures, and information systems, as well as motivation to achieve common goals and the organization’s position within the supply chain).
The development of logistics has led to the emergence of new definitions of this concept. In the 21st century, authors define it as the integration of business processes, from the sources of raw material procurement to the final recipient, together with service support and information enabling the creation of added value for the customer. Such a formulation allows us to state that a critical element of logistics management is the flow of resources (raw materials, labor, products, capital), and its essence is reducing the cost of introducing a product to the market and faster and easier transfer of resources between markets. In turn, the logistics system of an enterprise has been defined as a system of spatial-temporal transformation of goods, which we divide into procurement, production, distribution, spare parts, and waste recycling logistics. The subject of this article will be production logistics in a clothing company.
Tasks of clothing production logistics and its IT support
Production logistics is the organization of the production system along with its immediate warehousing and transport environment. Our own research has shown that in a clothing company, it includes the following tasks:
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planning, organizing, and controlling the clothing production process
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warehousing and recording work-in-progress in clothing production
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internal transport
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post-production waste management.
Planning, organization, and control of the clothing production process.
Production planning in clothing companies is carried out based on seasonal plans (spring-summer and autumn-winter). Correlating the company’s existing production potential with sales needs and optimizing production costs often leads to the division of production tasks and partially outsourcing them. As research has shown, the share of outsourcing and offshoring in clothing companies was as follows:
1) 6.9% of the research sample carried out all clothing production outside the company;
2) 6.9% of the sample outsourced more than half of production;
3) 37.9% of the sample outsourced less than half of production;
4) 48.3% of the sample used only their own production potential.
Balanced production capacities formed the basis for planning the location and time of execution of individual clothing models by designated teams within and outside the company. In the conducted research, no use of specialized software in operational planning was found. Usually, simple, deterministic relationships were used to plan and synchronize the successive phases of the clothing assembly process. It consists of the production of cut pieces, the execution of adhesive and thread connections, and thermal processing of products (inter-phase and final). The organization of clothing production covers the following areas:
1) personnel (required number of employees with specified qualifications and in a specified time to carry out the defined technological process);
2) technical (necessary machines and equipment);
3) material (optimal amount of materials/semi-finished products at workstations).
The listed areas determine the choice of the clothing assembly system: assembly line, sectional assembly line, sectional with synchronized processing groups, flow-based.
A significant factor determining the organization of the production process is the size of the order for a given clothing model, the possibility of combining the production of several models in one process, etc. All organizational actions taken are aimed at optimizing production costs and obtaining a high-quality product. Control of the clothing production process is carried out by foremen in the teams they lead. It concerns:
1) compliance of the execution of individual operations with the technical and technological documentation for the product;
2) quality of execution of all technological nodes;
3) synchronization of workstation work in the team;
4) optimization of product execution time;
5) care for safety and work atmosphere of the subordinate team of employees.
Warehousing and recording of work-in-progress in clothing production.
Work-in-progress inventories are necessary to maintain work continuity, but their excess negatively affects the company’s financial result. Methods of storing inventories in the clothing production process vary. They are stored in transport carts and/or on special racks and at workstations. Effective management of inventories and work-in-progress consists of forecasting optimal consumption and their continuous control. Determining the size of work-in-progress for each production team was done based on an original algorithm. It was the difference between the quantity of semi-finished products collected based on a production order – internal issue document (RW), the quantity of returns of semi-finished products to the warehouse – document (ZW), and the quantity of products transferred to the finished goods warehouse – document (K2). The sum of the quantities of products specified in the K2 documents should balance the quantities assigned by the production order for a given clothing pattern. The presented algorithm became the basis for creating computer software supervising the size of work-in-progress inventories. The level of detail of the records included: production date, number of the team carrying out the task, SWW symbol, name of the clothing model, and the assigned quantity of pieces. It was assumed that the settlement of inventory levels in teams would take place once a day, after the end of work. This project was prepared for the needs of the company where the author was then the production director. The written software was used in practice and confirmed the high effectiveness of this tool for controlling work-in-progress inventories. Thus, excessive inventories in this area indicate improper production management and cause the freezing of financial resources, i.e., an increase in production costs. Their optimization is an important task of production logistics. Meanwhile, in many clothing companies, supervision of work-in-progress still takes place intuitively, and for the purposes of preparing the annual balance sheet, a physical inventory of work-in-progress is performed. It disrupts the workflow, and its results have no impact on current production management. For proper operational management, daily verified information about the state of work-in-progress inventories is necessary.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 6/2009.