Abstract:
Apparel industry occupies an important place in the Sri Lankan economy. It has become
the largest export industry in Sri Lanka since 1986 and represents 39.7% of the total
exports and 52% of industrial products exports, becoming the largest foreign exchange
earner of the country today. In the apparel manufacturing process sewing is the most
critical function, because it assembles what customer asks. Moreover, it is the area the
efficiency problem is frequent since it is wholly labor oriented. In the sewing operation,
the sewing machine operator plays the central role, because even where there is whatever
sophisticated machinery only their hands can create what customers ask. Through the
preliminary study the researcher was able to find that the majority of the garment
factories in Sri Lanka operate below the targeted sewing efficiency level. Hence the
research problem of the current study was “what are the factors that influence the poor
sewing efficiency of the machine operators in the Sri Lankan garment industry”?
The main objective of the study was to develop a structural model of the factors that
influence the poor sewing efficiency of the machine operators in Sri Lankan garment
industry. Here the researcher identified sixteen key factors that influence the sewing
efficiency. Then structured interviews were conducted with 20 experts from academia
and industry to identify the relationships among these sixteen variables. Then
classification of factors was carried out based upon dependence and driving power with
the help of MICMAC analysis. Out of sixteen factors five factors were identified as
dependent variables; seven factors were identified as the driver variables and three
factors were identified as the linkage variables and one factor was identified as
autonomous variable. Here, the driving variables were: experience of the machine
operator, garment construction variations, quality of supervision, line balancing, training
and development process of the organization, corporate culture, quality of sewing
materials, machines, tools and equipment. The dependent variables were: skill of the
machine operators, sewing machine breakdowns, reworks in sewing lines, absenteeism of
the machine operator, turnover of the machine operator and the linkage variables were:
work in process inventories, physical working environment, satisfaction of machine
operators. The autonomous variable was input delays. Finally, a hypothetical model of
these factors was developed based upon experts’ opinions.
