1 Product Description: Sewing machine is used for tailoring garments and stitching clothes. In terms of operations, there are three types of sewing machines such as hand operated, foot operated and motor operated. In a modern garment factory, different types of sewing machines perform different tasks for sewing a specific kind of garment. The hand operated sewing machine is usually used by tailors who wok by themselves without much division of labor.
2 Market Potential: There are five or six garment factories in the country which produce clothes on factory scale. These factories produce mostly shirts and some uniforms which are used only by a small fraction of the population. The overwhelming majority of the people especially those who live in rural areas wear clothes tailored by individual tailors who operate single hand or foot operated sewing machines. These tailors with their sewing machines are scattered in all small and large urban centers in the country. Some of them even operate in large villages. Nobody knows the exact number of sewing machines found in the country. But some rough estimations put the figure between 150,000 and 200,000. If we assume that at least ten percent of these machines are replaced every year, the yearly replacement demand for sewing machines will be between 15,000 and 20,000. Besides, there will an additional demand for sewing machines due to population increase and we will take this to be about 3 percent of existing stock. This translates into a demand figure of 4500 to 6000 per year. Total annual demand for sewing machines will, therefore, be between 19500 to 26000 units. For an assembly plant this is more than sufficient to make it viable.
The demand is projected in increase at the rate of 5%. Table 1 shows the demand projection for the coming 10 years.
Table 1: Projected Demand
Metal components and parts will be imported for the first five years. Thereafter some components will be fabricated here at home. Non-metal parts such as tables will be made here.
3 Source of Raw materials: Metal components and parts will be imported for the first five years. Thereafter some components will be fabricated here at home. Non-metal parts such as tables will be made here.
4 Process and Technology: Most of the parts like C.I castings for arm and bed plate, pressed components, and other parts and accessories like needles, bobbins, etc. should be imported. The C.I castings are machined and painted. All these components will be assembled using the most appropriate and efficient assembly system. Machinery and equipment needed include double ended bench grinder, add a type milling machine, central lathe, baking oven, painting booth.
5 Estimated Investment: For a plant which will assemble 400 sewing machines per month or 4000 per year, the estimated investment will be:-
Building/shade 300m2 at Birr 1500/m2 = Birr 450,000
Machinery …………………………………….. = Birr 100,000
Working capital …………………………….. = Birr 500,000
Total = Birr 1,050,000
6 Benefits: Similar to other projects.
7 Location: Bahir Dar, Combolcha, Debre Birhan.