Application of Lean Manufacturing to Higher Productivity in the Apparel Industry in Bangladesh

For any industry cost and time related to production and quality management or wastages reductions have important impact on overall factory economy. Internal cost spent by a company and savings made by eliminating non productive works and time are important for management to keep the industry economically sound and safe. Emphasizing on it steps has been taken to investigate and apply lean manufacturing in the apparel industry. Lean Manufacturing can be considered as a business strategy which originated and developed in Japan. It tries to identify waste and eliminate it. Thus it leads to improvement in productivity of manufacturing and service organizations and quality of products leading to a competitive advantage over others. Bangladeshi industries, especially apparel sector have attempted to implement this, but a little research work is carried out in regarding its suitability. Our research on applicability of lean manufacturing helped the organization to visualize the different types of wastes generated in the organization and future possibilities of eliminating or reducing them. The research was administered with two leading apparel manufacturers in Bangladesh using personal interviews, secondary data and observations. The outcome of this observation reflected that an industry may gain higher productivity and profitability by proper application of lean manufacturing. The findings can be extended to similar apparel organizations in the future. A general overview over this development is given in this paper.