Considering Problems with Factories for AFL

After reading and commenting I thought I would try and practice what I preached so here is an idea on factories.

What is the current process?

The organisation uses a number of factories in the UK, China, India and the Middle East.

Each of the five teams may use 1 or more of these factories at any time for a particular style of clothing. The current process is that a Senior Buyer associated with a particular client will negotiate a price for to construct a particular style of garment with a factory and also negotiate a price with their particular client to supply that style of garment. Once agreed the Buyer passes on the details to the Snr. Garment tech who will then be responsible for a number of issues.

• discussing technical details of the garment with the factory,
• monitoring the critical path of the production of the garment
• obtaining production samples and ensuring the garments quality and fit is to the specification of the client
• Ensuring that the buyer has the correct information on delivery times to appraise the client.

Communication between the buyers, GT team and factory is recorded through e-mails.

Information is currently stored on the garment cost, technical specs and some general factory details in a spreadsheet which is then circulated between the GT team and the buyers.

What specific knowledge are we trying to capture?

Currently there is not enough exchange of information and knowledge about the factory operations and management or an individual factory’s ability to complete a task between the GT teams or the buyer teams. The organisation needs to capture knowledge on potential problems that are occurring and disseminate it. Examples of problem areas where knowledge could be shared include such areas as:

• Machine difficulties with particular fabrics, garment components (i.e zips and buttons)
• Language barriers
• Identifying people within the factory with Technical knowledge of garment construction
• Types of machines available
  

Why do we need to capture this knowledge?

If knowledge on these areas was exchanged and documented for all parties involved in the production process within the organisation, potential problem areas could be foreseen and used in the factory selection process, quality management or delivery stages. This would then improve the overall quality of garments produced and help and could easily improve productivity through by reducing delays in garment production and delivery. The knowledge can then be used to improve the control of the manufacturing process and develop innovative ways of utilising factory specialisms to improve productivity and customer satisfaction. Conversion of tacit knowledge of the problems into explicit knowledge that can be shared and exploited. The exploitation of the explicit knowledge shared can manifest as tacit knowledge within the teams to support their dealings with the factories.

How does obtaining this knowledge this align with the company’s strategy?

A Key strategic goal is concerned with increasing productivity of the workforce and improving relationships with major clients. If a KM strategy can be created to address these problems then productivity can be increased allowing for a greater volume of garments to be produced in similar time-scales. Ensuring delivery targets are met will encourage key clients to place more orders with the organisation and raise their profile as a reliable supplier.

Who should be involved?

The key players in dealing with the factories are the buyers and the garment technologists. So representatives from each of these areas should be involved.

What is the best method of capturing the knowledge?

There are several KM models that can provide a platform to help this decision.

Mclaughlin (2007) uses an adaptation of Nonaka’s learning organisational model to identify the positive impact that conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge can have on standardization and customer fulfilment which would support AF in control production and delivery. The reverse of tacit to explicit then focuses on empowerment which would provide AF with a more informed approach when selecting factories and negotiating price.

Collison and Parcell(2001) suggest a three stage holistic model as a practical approach involving learning before, learning during and learning after working in a cycle to consistently improve business results from specific objectives and introduce learning at every opportunity.

As a smaller organisation it would seem practical to begin this approach by creating a COP that would tackle this specific area. It would initially be represented by a senior GT and Senior buyer from each team arranging to meet on a weekly basis to discuss factory related issues and exchange stories of problems and solutions that had been discovered. It would be the job of one team to ‘host’ the meeting and record the findings and this responsibility could be rotated. Nonaka(2007) identifies the benefits of creating a slogan for a team to help them focus on what their mission is. This could come from the management team or from the COP themselves. Once the first couple of meetings have helped to focus the direction the senior staff could begin to invite a junior member to join the discussions and benefit from the exchange of ideas and knowledge. This could also help to bring fresh ideas and broaden the experience of the indivdual teams.

The stories and solutions could then be distributed using a wikki which could be indexed by factory or client which could be used by both the GT teams and Buyers when dealing with the factories. Incentives from management could include encouraging factory visits to the different countries by team representatives to develop better relations with factories with additional bonuses options of 1 extra nights stay in the country or an air miles scheme that could be converted into short break holidays to alternative destinations. After a factory meeting a team could then report back to the COP with a narrative on the trip, observations or even pictures of the factories to update the wikki and develop a greater sense of ownership. The small teams that visit factories can also perform what Collison and Parcell (2001) describe as After Action Reviews (AAR). This is a short documented review of the meeting directly after it has happened, perhaps over coffee, to learn from the process and think of how to improve next time. These methods are predominantly team driven, personalised systems, which are underpinned by technology and could be employed with minimum cost implications to the organisation or disruption to the teams.

From these types of practices simple and cost effective ideas such as providing a cluster of large 24hr wall clocks set to the time zone for each factory currently being used could be introduced to help everyone identify best times to contact a factory.

Moving Forward

A COP of this type could reduce the regularity of meetings as time progressed to the point where teams only need to get together perhaps once each month or at the point when a new factory that has not been introduced has been used. The knowledge will be protected through the organisational wikki and areas can be added updated or removed as new knowledge is created.

Collison,C., Parcell,G., 2001, Learning to fly, Capstone Publishing, Oxford,England

Nonaka, I., 2007. The Knowledge-Creating Company. Harvard business review, 85(7), pp. 162-171

McLaughlin, S., 2007. Managing knowledge for success. Engineering Management, 17(5), pp. 42-45.