Applying Lean in the Garment Industry

What are lean manufacturing's general concepts, especially in the garments industry?

In traditional manufacturing contexts, the optimization process focuses on identifying the ideal Batch size based on individual manufacturing processes or material handling. In a Lean environment, the ideal batch size is always one. This generally requires work cells that are organized by product (rather than process), so the transition is dramatic.

Under the principle of One Piece Flow, production rates are determined by Takt -- the rate at which the customers are buying product. Transitioning to a Continuous Flow model will probably require support/adoption of other related Lean initiatives, most notably the use of "pull" systems (Kanban) to avoid over-production and schedule-leveling tools.

The biggest challenge in making this transition is, of course, cultural. Management of people is what Lean is really all about.

If you are interested in what one of your competitors is doing, you might run a search on "Joseph Abboud Lean Manufacturing" to find some very recent commentary on one manufacturer's progress on the Lean highway.