Assembly line balancing: a case study for increasing and optimizing productivity in the clothing sector.

The sewing department of ready-made garment businesses is where the most operators work and the labour costs are the highest. To this end, unnecessary activities should be identified and eliminated using time and motion analysis techniques. It will be possible to increase efficiency with optimization work to be done on the line, thanks to minimum idle time and a smooth workflow. In order to balance the sewing line of a company that makes denim pants and increase efficiency, the present study was carried out. In the first phase of the study, only data from the company were collected without reaching the assembly line. An attempt was made to uncover the effects of the study and line balancing techniques, which maintained the daily target production quantity constant, on labour efficiency, assembly line efficiency and job unit time. For each operation, 10 products were observed and the average duration of the job was determined by timing with a stopwatch. As a result of line balancing, the number of employees working on the line was reduced by 39%, along with the elimination of idle labour for the target of 1450 units/day. As a result of these studies, the efficiency of the line increased from 70% to 80%. Labour efficiency increased by 67% and machine efficiency by 12%. Through this study, an ideal sewing line model was proposed, and an idea regarding the significance levels of the line balancing study conducted for businesses serving locally was given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]