Importance Of Lead Time In Garment Industry

Introduction to the topic

A lead time is the latency between the initiation and execution of a process. In apparel industry, lead time is the total amount of time required for completing a product beginning from the date of receiving the order to the shipment of the goods to customer. Time is a great issue in apparel trade as orders are based on weather, seasons and occasions. Lead time hence, carries huge importance when delivering the products to the respective outlets is concerned.

Harrell et al. (2004), stated that, lead time is the key to competitiveness of a firm as it affects both price and delivery schedule. Lead time reduction is strongly correlated with high first pass yield, high throughput times, and low variability in process

Line balancing in garment industry deals with allocating the resources such as workers and machinery to the assembly line so that the precedence relation are satisfied and the sum of task at any workstation does not exceed lead time. Simulation has been a preferred tool to evaluate the performance of garment production line as it has the ability to model dynamic and stochastic nature of production systems. It enables the researcher to gain a critical insight into the performance of a manufacturing company.

Importance of Lead Time in Apparel Industry Lead time, like in any other manufacturing fields, is undoubtedly one of the predominant issues in outsourcing and durable global marketing of apparel industry that largely depends on accomplishing an order within a certain elapsed time to meet the customer demands properly. There are three parameters cost, quality and lead time for apparel retailers are critical but one can’t deny the importance of finishing a job as early as possible since it is perhaps some buyer’s requirements. The following list will throw light about the necessity of lead time.

1. Product cost, quality and lead-time are correlated. Quality denotes the existence and performance of the product. However, paying high cost to get the product that

Lead time can be measured on the total manufacturing process it indicates how quickly raw material is converted into finished product. Lead time will be the one of the most important factor which will help the organization to gain competitive edge in global competitive environment of global business which is driven by customers’ expectations. Minimising lead time not only will satisfy the customer expectations but also reduces the operational cost of the company. This in return will help organisations to enjoy the competitive advantage by achieving cost