The Hindu Business Line : ‘Labour imbalance bane of India’s garment productivity’

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‘Labour imbalance bane of India’s garment productivity’

The Indian market constitutes 5 per cent ($30 million worth) of Juki’s sewing machine sales worldwide

G. Gurumurthy

Coimbatore, Aug. 16 Low productivity syndrome haunting the country’s garment sector is more on account of production line imbalance from skewed labour skill management than for want of technology machines, said Mr Noriaki Saito, Managing Director of Juki Machinery (India) Pvt Ltd.

According to him, Indian garment companies production line is as modern as any other textile exporting countries in the region, say China or Pakistan, in terms of latest garment machinery in use. But what they lack are management of machine and method of labour utilisation.

The Indian companies do make good investment on latest machinery but their machine maintenance was often seen as ‘terrible’, Mr Saito said. Labour management at production line is important and what the garment units need are the ‘line balance’ and the ‘time and motion’ study of the workers to achieve optimum or higher productivity, Mr Noriaki added.

The Juki Machinery (India) Managing Director, while talking to newspersons at the sidelines of an international conference on ‘Apparel and Home Textiles’, which was inaugurated here this evening, said productivity between workers engaged in the same factory in India varied vastly signalling the need for balancing workers’ output through a systemic study. The average per day per machine garment output in the country is estimated at 14/15, as compared with 20-25 garments in China and as high as 30/35 garments in Italy.

Juki sewing machine is among the few top-notch industrial sewing machines widely used by garment units in the country. Juki sells its sewing machinery range produced from its Japan and China-based production plants in India. The Indian market constitutes 5 per cent ($30 million worth) of Juki’s sewing machine sales worldwide and during the 2006 calendar year, the company had sold about 40,000 machines in India, which is some 60 per cent higher compared with the previous year’s sale, according to Mr Saito. The company feels its sale during the current year would have about 20 per cent growth.

Mr Saito said garment production units located in interior towns in India which were thought to be largely catering to domestic garment markets were growing aggressively of late. These emerging garment production centres situated in smaller cities such as Karur, Madurai, Erode, Bellary appear to lay emphasis on quality garment making at international standards. Juki Machinery India views these centres to be potential market for its machinery. While discounting the scope for Juki setting up any production plant in India in the immediate future, the Japanese machinery maker is however looking at the possibility of outsourcing spares and accessories. The three-day international conference organised jointly by the International Textile Education Consortium and the Komarapalayam-based S S.M. College of Engineering, has attracted participants from overseas including Pakistan, Japan, Italy and Iran.

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