Capacity Capacity – Is the maximum amount of work that an organization is capable of completing in a given period of time.

How to determine capacity requirement ? Understand the work load Determine the unit of work Identify service levels for each workload.

Capacity of a sewing line is commonly measured in terms of number of garments produced per shift, per hour or per month. But as garments do not have standardized work content, pcs per hour is not the correct representation of capacity. Capacity of one sewing operator is 60 minutes per hour maximum.

Efficiency It is primarily a measure of the effectiveness of the manager and supervisor and as such is best applied to sections / departments / factories and not the individual operators.

Efficiency = (SMV earned on standard / attended time ) x 100 It is usually calculated for a line and not really relevant to the individual unless incentives are paid on efficiency and not performance.

Efficiency or line utilization is calculated by minutes produced / minutes attended expressed as percentage.

In sewing line of 20 operators a style of 20 SMV is produced in 8 hour shift. If the average daily production of the style is 400 pcs / shift then the line utilization or line efficiency can be calculated as under :

Minutes utilized = SMV x pcs / shift = 20x400 Minutes attended = number of operator X number of minutes per shift = 20 x 480 = 9600 So, the line utilization or line efficiency is 8000 x 100 / 9600 = 83.33% This measure is also called as balance efficiency.

SAM or SMV SAM – Standard Allowed Minutes SMV – Standard minute Value SAM and SMV are considered to be the same. SMV earned is the measure of work done by operator. It is calculated from output from an operation generated in attended minutes and SMV of the operation. SMV earned = ( SMV x output in number of units )

It is usually calculated for individuals as well as for a line. As it is needed for individuals for incentive payment calculation and performance and needed for lines for efficiency calculation. Also sometimes aggregated for departments and factories to get factory efficiency.

Lost time or lost output Reasons for time loss or output loss : Poor balancing No or improper feeding of the cut parts. Non availability of accessories ( thread, zipper, cord etc ) Shifting of operators resulting start up loss. Machine breakdown Loss due to repairs