Vapi is one of Raymond’s most prominent plant and they have unique production processes and various other highlights that sets them apart as one of the leaders in Textiles.
Brief about plant:
The total land area at Khadaki Unit is 112.61 acres out of which they are currently utilising 94.43 acres for industrial purpose and on the rest 18.18 acres, they have their own Dr Vijaypath Singhania school which is also a part of their CSR activity.
One of the major highlight of this area is that they are connected to the national highway, so when it comes to logistics and transportation, it becomes really convenient for them. Moreover, they have a water body running across the plant which is known as Kothal Creek, which means they have our own water resource.
The foundation of this plant was laid on 14th May 2005. The plant was commissioned in total 4 phases. The first phase was inaugurated on 30th March 2006 in which they started the later processes of textiles like Weaving, Finishing, Folding and Warehouse. The purpose behind this was to hit the market at the earliest.
The 2nd phase was started on 17th Feb 2007, in which they did backward integration and introduced process of combing, dyeing and spinning which made their plant a composite unit.
In the 3rd phase which was on 5th Mar 2009, they further expanded all their existing processes. And their last phase was on 31st March, 2012 in which they relocated various machineries from an older plant which was earlier in Thane, specifically to the departments of finishing, folding and warehouse.
Process Overview:
The basic raw material that they use is Merino wool, which they majorly import from Australia. It comes through sea route to the Mumbai port from where they bring it to the plant via road. As the wool is in raw condition, it contains many impurities like body grease of sheep, vegetable matter, dirt and dust particles etc. Majority of these impurities gets removed in the 1st process which is wool scouring. The capacity of wool scouring is 14 tons/day
The next process is grey combing. Grey combing process is for wool fibre and converter process is for polyster which is their 2nd major raw material which they acquire from Reliance. In both these processes, the wool and polyester fibres are separately converted into a rope like structure known as sliver; post which it is converted into a ball like structure known as top. The conversion to top is necessary for coloring purpose which takes place in the next process of dyeing.
So, in dyeing, both the wool and polyester fibres are colored separately due to their different fibre properties and the capacity of Dyeing is 12 tons/day. During the dyeing process, fibre gets entangled. So to detangle it, they have another process known as recombing.
Also, in recombing, the two major raw materials, i.e. Polyester and wool are mixed in desired proportions as per the requirement of the customers. The capacity of Recombing is 14 Tons/day.
The next process is spinning where thread is manufactured. Thread is also known as yarn in technical terms and they have a yarn manufacturing capacity of 7.5 Tons/day.
Then they have weaving process where finally fabric is manufactured through interlacement of two sets of yarn technically known as warp and weft. Their fabric manufacturing capacity is 28000 metres/day.
In mending, a majority of the fabric faults are removed manually. Then comes the finishing process. Finishing is also known as the heart of Raymond. It is because of this process, it is said, Raymond feels like heaven. Here, they provide all the finishing touches to the fabric through processes like scouring, singeing, heat setting etc. The capacity of finishing is 70000 metres per day.
Then comes the folding process wherein the fabric is inspected, graded, cut and folded as per the requirement of customer. They dispatch our fabric from warehouse. Our dispatch capacity is 1,50,000 metres/day
Supporting departments:
Apart from all these production processes, in order to support our massive plant, Raymond has various support functions like HR, IT etc. (IT which is outsourced)
Employment highlights:
Following are some of Raymond’s major employment highlights:
They are a team of 1338 workmen and 217 management staff. The number of workmen employed in their plant are approximately 1/3rd to that present in our other plant which is located in Chhindwara. This is only possible because of the modern machineries that they have here and also because of the younger workforce.
One of the major highlights is that they do not discriminate between their workmen and management staff. In order to support this, you can see their I-cards: you will not be able to tell whether he belongs to Staff or workmen category as the blue strip of I-card is common between both of them. And they distinguish the contract workmen by giving them orange strip card, the interns by giving them pink strip card and the visitors by giving them red strip card.
Another example is of the canteen. Even though, sitting area is separate for staff and workmen, they have a common kitchen. So the food that is served and the services that are offered are similar in both the places.
They have Open Door policy in their plant. So, any employee, be it workmen and staff, wants to interact with senior management, they don’t need to seek approval or take prior appointment. They can directly go to their cabin and solve their grievances.
In addition, they have multi-skilled workmen in their plant. So, when you will go to the shop floor, you will get to know that a workman is not only trained to operate one type of machinery, but he is trained to operate all types of machineries present in that dept. This is achieved through 18 months of training program that they provide to the newly recruited workmen, and this specifically helps them for job rotation and in cases of absenteeism.
Raymond doesn’t have clerical staff in their plant. As mentioned earlier, they have only two categories- Management Staff and workmen. And all the clerical activities are performed by data entry operators who come under workmen category.
They practice weekly shift rotation. In textiles, majority of the manufacturing plants function for 24 hours which get divided into 3 shifts of 8 hour each. As per the previous trends in textile industry, the shifts are either rotated on a monthly or fortnight basis. Weekly shift rotation is a new concept in a textile industry which they practice in the plant wherein an employee working in shift will have one day of a week as a work off and on the next day he will have to come in subsequent shift. This gives him extra hours to come back rejuvenated. 
Some highlights from the plant:
They have a fully integrated designing studio. The benefit of having a designing studio in house is if a designer has any new development idea, he/she doesn’t need to disturb bulk production. They can directly go to the studio and manufacture their own samples.
This plant is ISO certified plant. They have the following certifications: Along with their other plant located in Jalgaon, they are among the first in textiles in India to get the certification for energy management system.
They are home to the world’s finest worsted fabric. Raymond Vapi plant has produced the world’s finest suiting fabric, Super 250s from the finest ever 11.4 micron merino wool.
Market boosters
These are some of the new developments that have been manufactured by plant which have played role as market boosters:
- Technoseries- Consisting of technosmart, tehcnostretch, technofresh and techno comfort fabrics.
- Performance fabrics like aloe vera finish, cool mint finish
- Virasafe fabric which is a prime example on their belief of converting a crisis into an opportunities.
- Raymond limited has manufactured uniforms for both Indian Army and Indian Air force.
- Keeping up with the patriotic spirit, Raymond has been the official style partner for the Indian contingent that participated in various major sporting spectacles.
International customers
Raymond caters to some prominent international brands including big names like Marks and Spencer, Macy’s, Singapore Airlines etc.
Industry 4.0
Raymond is taking slow but steady steps towards industry 4.0. Some of their initiatives include:
- Robotic Process Automation: This has completely eliminated manual report entries.
- They have developed various inhouse mobile applications to provide ease of access of information to people working on shop floor.
- They have a live Weaving TOC board which provides loom wise priority of running material.
- Anti duplication peg plan has eliminated duplication of existing peg plans.
- They have a live dashboard for all production departments which displays key performance indicator of that department.
Employee Connect
These are some of employee engagement activities at Raymond:
- Abhivyakti forum is a platform for employees to display and approve their presentation skills.
- Quarterly meeting with works committee is conducted.
- Back to basics program designed specifically for workmen to enhance their knowledge on all the plant processes.
- Dialogue with WD and GET/RLA connect to improve connectivity between WD and staff employees.
- They have an inhouse magazine Sparsh that is published half yearly
- And warp and weft which are conducted virtually now on a monthly basis to discuss plant’s performance and other concerns.
Other activities
Raymond celebrates important days in their plant. Independence and Republic day, wherein they honor their workmen for their exemplary performance, attendance and special contribution.
As a part of team initiative, they have incorporated various schemes in our plant. One of them is upkeeping scheme which is launched basically to maintain the upkeep of departments, specifically those which are on shop floors.
Another one is suggestion scheme, in which a workman or a group of workmen share suggestions and if it is found implementable, the 10% saving after the idea is implemented goes to the person who has suggested.
Triumphs:
These are some of the awards and accolades received by the Vapi plant in recent times:
National Energy Conservation Award: From the late former President of India
They have also received the prestigious Clean Energy Ministerial Energy Management Insight award 2018. This award recognized our ISO 50001 certified plant on a global level and a case study on our plant was presented at that forum.
Quality circle:
They have a total 12 active quality circle teams working on various projects in the plant. These teams have won Gold, Silver and excellence awards at various levels (zonal, state and national level).
