Modular Team Working on the Sewing Floor

Date: 17 July 2000

Background

In answer to the two questions posed, the Ideal Solution is what you need it to be.

1. Should Teams always be configured in a ‘U’ formation?

2. Is there a ‘Minimum Pitch Time?

Supplementary Issue for discussion:

3. Will Linked Cells work as per the original thinking?

The ‘U’ Team Formation.

The real issue with this is can ‘Team Dynamics’ still work if the teams are set out in a straight line.

On my travels around different industries, the teams were always in a group of some sort and tended to be set out in ‘U’ formations where sequential operations existed.

The shape of the unit helps to encourage ownership and everyone in the team has to enter and leave through the same route forcing regular communication with each other and everyone can see the finished product as they pass the last operation.

However, if the team is not excessively long and other practices are used to maintain the ownership & Communication issues, why not make it work.

The Straight-Line configuration developed had it own multiple objectives at the time.

1. We needed to work on more than one style at a time (Delivery Constraint).

2. We did not have enough special machines (or the Capex) to give each Team their own machines.

3. We did not have sufficient experience to know if a Modular team would work without WIP.

The experience of keeping everyone working with a balanced Work In Process, and keeping Maximum Utilisation, was Start Up Chaos which needed constant supervision.

Left to their own devices, people worked on the operations they excelled in and got behind with the rest.

Waiting for Work, Moving Around, Waiting to get on the Special Machine, all lost Productive Time.

The Knitwear experience was the same:

Not enough Special Machines and imbalanced workload per operation made the balancing of the Work In Process difficult.

Therefore, if its of any help, I would favour the approach the was made with The first two Sub Assembly Teams.

‘U’ Shape or Straight Line configuration, but employing single garments or small quantities per operator, with Controlled WIP held between the Team and its subsequent Customer Team.

As long as, from a standing start, all of the components meet the Customer Team over the same time scale, it should work fine.

The Minimum Pitch Time.

This is all about keeping the Whole Team working all of the time.

There needs to be a long enough Cycle Time at each Pitch to ensure that the ‘Bumping Off’ of the Operator from one pitch onto the earlier adjacent pitch does not happen too frequently or take too long.

The 'U' Shaped Team in Action

The First Operator on the right side feeds on a new Jacket. The Last operator on the left is inspecting the finished Jacket.

The control factors are the Total Basic Minutes and the Operator Numbers in a Team and the Number of pieces of Equipment in each Pitch (Minimum of Two). You have to work it out and reduce / increase the Team size (People / Machines) to make the balance work and to provide that space for a Bumped operator to work in.

Each Team member will be working their garment part through their own Pitch. The 'Bumping' process will begin when the last operator completes the product and moves into their adjacent Pitch, taking over the next garment in sequence and creating a domino effect Bumping each operator until the first operator is released to begin a new garment.

The Base of the 'U' Shape

The nearest of the two operators on the left is about to 'Bump' or release the operator to her right side who will then walk up the team to release the next garment from the operator in the distance. Once she has that garment she will work it back towards this end through each of the operations until it is released from her.

The gap between the operators here is caused by a Tailored Jacket having a high requirement for special machines, many of which have very short cycle time operations.