Improvement of garment assembly line efficiency using line balancing technique

Abstract

The current competitiveness of garment manufacturing industries is highly dependentonabilitytoimproveefficiencyandeffectivenessofresourceutilization through proper application of industrial engineering techniques such as linebalancingandtimestudy.However,veryfewapparelindustrieshavecomprehendedindustrialengineeringfunctionduetolittleknowledgeonpractical application of industrial engineering techniques. The present study aimed at balancingatrouserassemblylineusingtherankedpositionalweighttechnique to increase the line efficiency as well as minimize the number of workstations without violating the constraints: precedence relations, cycle time, and resource type. The empirical study was conducted at Southern Range Nyanza Limited (NYTIL) garment manufacturing facility to demonstrate the practical application of ranked positional weight line balancing technique. Results showed that ranked positional weight method is suitable only for assembly linebalancingwithnoconstraintontheresource.However,mostcomplexgarment assembly lines consist of a number of different machine types rendering rankedpositionalweightmethodpracticallyineffectiveforimprovinglineefficiencyofacomplexgarmentassemblyline.Therefore,profoundlinebalancing usingsimulation-basedoptimizationtoimprovethelineefficiencyofcomplex garmentassemblylineshouldbeinvestigated.