With apparel export of around Rs. 10,000 crore, Jaipur, one of the leading apparel manufacturing hubs of India, is inching towards World Class Manufacturing (WCM).
And Garment Exporters Association of Rajasthan (GEAR), the prominent body of Rajasthan’s apparel exporters with more than 270 members, is supporting the hub in this regard.
The association is motivating its members to adopt such practices which make their factories meet the parameters of WCM. For this, it is also taking the help of experts and using online platforms.
GEAR, in association with Sowtex, also organised a webinar on WCM in which Rajiv Dewan, President, Navin Adwani, VP and Aseem Singla, General Secretary discussed various aspects of WCM with Nimish Dave, Founder and CEO, The Idea Smith (a leading consultancy firm).
It was insisted that as most of the factories in Jaipur are of mid-level size, the entrepreneurs of the city should not feel that WCM is not for them as it does not cost something extra.
“WCM is the philosophy of being the best, the fastest and the lowest cost producer of a product and one must exceed any competitor on quality, innovation, flexibility and innovation. Sustainability and Lean are also part of WCM, so Jaipur’s factories have a lot of scope to adopt WCM and improve themselves,” said Nimish.
Rajiv Dewan insisted that rather than just being worried about global competition and thinking about others, we need to focus on continuous improvement, no matter how good we are doing already, so WCM is one of the best routes for the Jaipur’s apparel industry.
Aseem Singla also shared that the Jaipur is also improving in sustainable aspects as many factories are producing organic garments and there is much scope as Jaipur has an edge of using vegetable dyes and various traditional techniques that are also environment friendly.
Experts do believe that along with following concepts like Lean, working culture of Jaipur needs to improve, especially looking at the current business scenario amidst coronavirus fear.
“It is good that Jaipur has taken a lead in the direction of WCM. In fact, entire Indian apparel industry needs to move in this direction as one of our surveys of 775 apparel manufacturing companies across India (more than 35 per cent being SMEs) showed that none of the companies is great (score range of 37-45) as far as WCM is concerned, while 366 companies (maximum) are in poor category (scoring 10-18),” concluded Nimish.
