|
Business Accent
The post-MFA role of RFID in garment manufacturing
RFID automates textile-handling operations, ensuring 100
percent reliability, significant labour savings and a dramatic reduction in
the number of customer complaints.
Since January 1, 2005, the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA)—a tortuous quota system
that ruled (and distorted) trade in the apparel industry for 30 years—has expired.
With the advent of this new era of a quota-free world, the Indian apparel sector
is poised to witness major growth. Even after considering some backlash for
small operators, overall growth is inevitable, and we need to be ready with
careful and strategic planning, with proper utilisation of the technology available.
The present article critically evaluates the role of Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) in the Indian apparel sector, and how much it can increase productivity.
RFID tags can be placed in an apparel product without affecting the apparel’s
comfort or look. For example, the tag could be in a seam, hem or in a paper
carton label. RFID readers can be placed at the entry of a warehouse or on the
shop floor, depending on the step at which it is used, and the size and frequency
used. It can read up to 20 feet, though most in use today read only about 2
to 10 feet.
Automation for the garment trade
 RFID
chips first came to the textile rental market in the 1990s, and their features
allowed the automation of manual tasks that were usually performed in laundry
plants, packaging and shipping. The technology also opened new services for
customers of textile rental companies such as automatic garment dispensers.
In the garment industry, RFID reflects a giant leap from barcodes,
enabling closer tracking of product shipments from the factory to the shop floor.
As a productivity tool, RFID has centred on automating the textile-handling
processes at check-in, sorting and check-out. It enables any textile-handling
operation to be automated, providing 100 percent reliability, significant labour
savings and dramatic reduction in customer complaints.
Procuring raw material
This phase is important in terms of the initial requirement for the final production of a garment. When a fabric
is procured from the supplier in the form of bales or in other forms, it can be
tagged using RFID chips and then transferred to the store. The same can be done
for trims such as buttons and threads which are usually stored in boxes. Thus,
each box can have an RFID chip that can include information about the type, colour,
size and supplier of that trim. Until now, this was done using barcodes, though
it was rarely seen in the Indian business scenario. Barcodes have the limitation
of the eye of sight requirement for scanning and tracking.
In the cutting room
When a fabric is being cut, thin RFID chips having the information of the roll
number from which the fabric came, along with the sequence of steps it has to
undergo, can be attached to it. This will enable each department to know at every
step from where that piece has come and where it has to go. At each step, information
can be entered in the chip so that every step gets updated and shows the next
order process. Also, it helps in tracking down the end-bits when required in future.
Component and garment bundling
Depending on the type of bundling done, component
vis-à-vis garment (piece), RFID chips can be attached to individual components
to keep track of where each part is and what steps are left to get it completely
sewn. Also, if the quality department rejects any piece or needs to send it for
alteration, it can be easily traced back to the person who actually had sewn that
piece of garment, or maybe the whole garment. When a garment or component is sent
back for alteration, the RFID chip can be updated to mention the part altered
and at which step. This may help for future reference when the final garment is
ready. Further, when labels are being attached to garments, different RFID chips
can be sewn to the labels. The chip will have all the information required by
the buyer, including cost of the garment, wash-care details, fabric content, name
of the manufacturer, and so on. This is actually used in retail stores.
Finishing and shipment
When a garment gets its shape after sewing, it has to be send to
the finishing department for making it ready to wear depending on the final requirement.
This can be an interesting step because here the RFID chip can have pre-fed information
about the sequence of finishing processes to be done and also the limitations
of temperature, pressure and other precautions to be observed depending on the
type of fabric and the style requirement. This is the last but most important
role played by the manufacturing unit. Here the pallet and cartons are fixed with
RFID chips and tracked until they reach their destination. This gives the exact
location of that particular shipment and provides time-to-time status. For real-time
experience, the new requirement is to make all the information accessible wherever
and whenever needed. Today, most RFID data is transmitted within private corporate
networks. The next step is to make this information available over the Internet
to designated supply chain partners. This allows information on product movement
to be exchanged with databases outside of a company’s private network.
Sample and pattern
Pattern making and sampling are done in the pre-production stage,
but after complete production is done and the shipment has gone, the original
pattern and the sample approved by the buyer can be tagged with an RFID chip.
The pattern can have detailed information regarding the making and style of the
pattern and what care was taken in making it. Also, some details that were particular
for that buyer’s requirement can be put in the chip and stored in the product
development cell for future reference.
Strategy for deploying RFID
For RFID tags to replace barcodes, the technology has to be a hundred times cheaper, or at about
5 cents to a dollar. New tags need to be developed with a memory of only 96 bits
and read only with frequency range of just a few metres. Prices are expected to
reduce as more retailers such as Pantaloon, Walmart, Target and Metro AG are opting
for this technology to increase their productivity.
The author is a telecom engineer from BMS College of Engineering,
Bangalore. He is currently pursuing his PG in Fashion Technology at NIFT, New
Delhi. E-mail: ankushwadhwa@yahoo.com
|
