The Rs. 100 crore conglomerate of Jain Group of Industries is supplying bottoms to leading domestic retailers/brands like United Colors of Benetton, Lifestyle, Bossini, ITC Wills, Spykar, Pantaloons, Jabong and American Swan, besides exporting 10-20% of its produce to UK-based buyers like Jigsaw. RC Apparels, the sewing subsidiary of the Group, manufactures 1.5 lakh denim and non-denim trousers every month. Leveraging the benefits of being vertically integrated with a modern washing unit and regularly upgrading its infrastructure, RC Apparels has stood the test of time and recently shifted to new premises in Gurgaon with 350 machines, 25 per cent more than the previous capacity. “The domestic market is booming right now and growing really fast. We are simply capitalizing on it,” says Akhil Jain, MD, RCJC – the washing subsidiary of the conglomerate. In conversation with Team StitchWorld, Akhil Jain and Manvendra Kumar, GM – Operations, RC Apparels capture the essence of the organization and its operations…
Although located in Gurgaon (Delhi-NCR), RC Apparels does not belong to the crop of high-fashion ladies garments manufacturers’ characteristic to the region. Working with a standardized product category has given enough room to develop stringent standard operating procedures. This strength is further augmented with the vertically integrated setup of the group. Going from strength to strength, Jain Group as a whole has grown from being a fabric processing and corduroy weaving unit in 1983 to include a thriving garmenting business today. “We are receiving increasing volumes of business every season which has helped us balance the increasing overheads as well,” informs Akhil. Alongside 1.5 lakh trousers per month, the group’s corduroy weaving capacity runs up to 10 million metres per month in 200 qualities while the processing capacity on the other hand is 20 million metres of fabric per month for both in-house purposes and job work for exporters as well.
Skinny fits and good fits in general are the norm of the day be it men’s wear or women’s wear and to achieve that fit one needs to work with stretch fabrics. About 80 per cent of the garments being manufactured in the factory use stretch fabric and the rest use super stretch fabrics. Such fabrics, however, come with the challenge of high post-wash shrinkage making it difficult to control the specs. “In regular stretch fabrics, the shrinkage is 2-3 per cent, which implies that for every metre of fabric, 2-3 cm is lost post-wash. With super stretch fabrics, the shrinkage is even higher, between 10-18 per cent. Every per cent increase of spandex almost doubles the shrinkage,” says Manvendra.
An important process is also to create a swatch blanket consisting of 20X20 cm swatches of fabric from each roll sewn together and subjected to wash. This records two variables – the shrinkage of each roll and how each roll will react to the wash.
So how does one deal with such a fabric? “Our controls begin from the sampling stage itself,” informs Akhil. The company follows a 3-checkpoint system in the sampling room. On receiving the order, the garment is constructed in the base size and subjected to wash in order to record shrinkages, which is then added to the pattern to make a size set and pre-production sample. An important process is also to create a swatch blanket consisting of 20×20 cm swatches of fabric from each roll sewn together and subjected to wash. This records two variables – the shrinkage of each roll and how each roll will react to the wash. “We share this blanket with the buyer who establishes tolerances and weeds out unacceptable qualities. In case of super stretch fabrics, one garment is constructed from each roll and the rest of the procedure is same,” adds Akhil. Relaxing the fabric before cutting is an important procedure to get the fit right. “We open the roll and relax it for 12 hours and after laying the fabric we relax it for another 12 hours,” Manvendra elaborates. Although, presently working with a manual cutting room, Manvendra reveals that the company is contemplating going for automation despite a space crunch and the cost involved.
The sewing floor, however, is RC Apparels’ industrial engineering’s true tour de force. Pursuing productivity and quality in one leap, the factory’s lines are equipped with machines with advanced technologies like fully automated pocket setter, back pocket decorative stitch, automatic loop attachment machines, work aids, etc. 350 heavy duty needle feed machines have been laid out as eight lines. Each of these lines comprise of three sub-groups dedicated to front panel, back panel and assembly operations. The three groups function independently and have their individual targets. There are 15 machines for front panel line, while the number of machines for back panel line range from 7-15 depending on style. The number of machines for assembly operations runs in to 20. Subsequently, the pieces are dispatched to kaj-button department. Each of these sub lines, including kaj-button, has 100 per cent end line inspections. “Style changeovers are frequent as order quantities are small. That is why we have segregated our lines into part assemblies. It is easier to handle and balance 15-20 machines than to balance a line of 40-50 machines. Although the WIP in this arrangement is heavy, the waiting time is reduced for the assembly section giving us better productivity and quality,” Manvendra elaborates. The pieces are matched during assembly by the standard method of matching the sticker number for front panel with the back panel.
Subsequently, the garments are dispatched to the washing unit, which Akhil dubs to be an in-house competency. “We are amongst the top five washing units in Delhi-NCR and the reason is because our infrastructure is not only versatile and enormous, it has also been designed for quality. This industry has a lot of small players but very less number of big washers. Besides, I will not take an order if it cannot be done in my factory,” avers Akhil who closely monitors fabric and garment processing operations of the group. The washing unit has 10×200 kg side-loading machines (Stalwart), 10×350 kg front loading machines (Fabcare), 20 sampling machines, 15×100 kg tumblers or drying machines (Fabcare), ozone wash machine and 5 acid wash machines. The dry process department on the other hand has a 50-member team, who deliver 5,000 garments per day. Apart from a strenuous infrastructure, the washing unit is backed with an intensive design support as well and every month 100-150 washes are developed by a 20-member team. “We also have tie-ups with Turkey based companies so that we get to know of any new techniques or processes to stay ahead in the market,” Akhil reveals.
“Style changeovers are frequent as order quantities are small. That is why we have segregated our lines into part assemblies. It is easier to handle and balance 15-20 machines than to balance a line of 40-50 machines. Although the WIP in this arrangement is heavy, the waiting time is reduced for the assembly section giving us better productivity and quality.” – Manvendra Kumar, GM – Operations, RC Apparels
Besides the colour segregation at the cutting stage with colour shade variation markers, the garments are segregated at the washing stage as well according to colour groups. Each colour group is tied with a coloured rope for convenient identification while washing. “40 per cent of our garment processing operations are dedicated to exporters who work with buyers like H&M,” notifies Akhil who recently got his washing infrastructure audited as per H&M requirements. Already compliant to GOTS and SEDEX as well, the unit is now being geared up to meet Inditex’s compliance levels. Once processed, the goods are sent to the finishing room where they are checked for excessive tears and processing in initial checking and then forwarded for thread cutting, pressing and packing. Finally, the packaged product is audited for quality at AQL 2.5.
Although the company has been navigating the domestic turf for close to two decades, Akhil continues to find the vagaries of market directions and fashion trends exciting but perplexing. “When I had joined the business 2 years back, suddenly denim was wiped out from the market as non-denim took over. I was used to seeing about 50,000 pieces daily in my factory going around and all of a sudden I didn’t see any goods in the factory. Non-denim would come for either bio wash or softener wash which takes hardly a day, whereas processing denims is a 10-15 days process,” he remembers.
Similarly, Akhil invested in 15 wrinkling machines few years ago, while the wrinkle fad has passed, the machines remain in the factory. “The vagaries notwithstanding, the factory’s KPIs are healthy with zero rejection levels on sewing floor, cut to ship ratio of 0.98 and an alteration rate of 2 per cent on finishing floor,” concludes Akhil.
