Coats Digital FastReactPlan Helps Panam Group Improve Productivity

Company Performance

Coats Digital FastReactPlan Helps Panam Group Improve Productivity

Best practice planning implementation results in 3% efficiency gain, improved forward loading visibility, enhanced communication and coordination and man-hours reduced on manual reporting, for Bangladesh’s Panam Group. THE CUSTOMER Since 2001, Bangladesh-based Panam Group has grown into a successful vertical, world-class knit garment manufacturer covering yarn dyeing, knitting, fabric dyeing and finishing, sewing and garments dyeing. Main customers include H&M, GU and Next Sourcing. THE CHALLENGE To increase efficiency to compensate for lower FOB prices being given by customers. Communication and coordination between Marketing, Production and Planning meant it took several meetings to:

Limited visibility of forward loading and open capacity.

THE SOLUTION Panam Group uses FastReactPlan’s high-level capacity and detailed line level sewing planning boards to manage production capacities, which in turn links to FastReactPlan’s operation management module. Using the pull system principle, FastReactPlan automatically creates detailed schedules from yarn dyeing to finished goods packing considering style and colour variations and generates accurate T&A target dates based on the production plan. The planners now have clear visibility of the load versus capacity for each machine group / production process well in advance so they can ensure that sewing demand is achievable and any potential problems can be reviewed during weekly production meetings to ensure staff are proactive rather than reactive. David Lush, Coats Digital’s Director of Professional Services, explains: “The Panam Group team were very active and dedicated. The team accepted FastReactPlan from project kick-off and actively explored what more could be achieved to replace their previous process. FastReactPlan was quickly introduced to weekly production meetings and KPI reviews were held with Panam Group Senior Management team”. KEY FACTS THE RESULTS Rubel Kanta Deb, Senior Manager (Central Planning) Panam Group said: “Using FastReactPlan’s high level capacity planning board we were able to plan all projection and confirmed orders to the relevant units based on customer, product type and material availability. “We can now forecast more accurately for the next 6 – 12 months whereas earlier on Excel, we were able to manage a maximum 3 month’s loading. FastReactPlan’s detailed sewing line level planning board gave us the visibility of continuing planning similar product types which drastically improved efficiency. “It has become much easier to understand buyer trends, factory loading, plan versus actual and overall production status. We have managed to increase our capacity utilisation by as much as 50% and improve efficiency by 3% as FastReactPlan is giving us the required visibility. This means we have reduced our order confirmation process too by being able to consider open capacity much quicker.” THE CONCLUSIONS Balaram Roy Chowdhury, Executive Director Metro Group commented: “FastReactPlan is user friendly and very easy to install when compared to other software. Our planning department picked it up very quickly and were soon communicating better with our marketing and production departments. Regular visits by Coats Digital staff helped us get the most out of the implementation process.”