Intelligent Manufacturing € October € 1996 € Vol. 2 € No. 10

Sara Lee Puts a New Spin on MES

Sara Lee Knit Products (SLKP) (Winston-Salem, N.C.), a producer of underwear, activewear and licensed apparel products, needed to transform its manufacturing operations from traditional, rigid systems based on 1970s era technology to modern systems able to carry it into the 21st century. Global competition spurred by NAFTA and the new World Trade Organization have thrown the textile and apparel industry into a state of flux, requiring a leaner manufacturing philosophy for those companies that intend to remain in business.

SLKP found itself faced with other challenges as well. The scope of manufacturing apparel has changed from a stable environment of large volume runs of relatively few styles to smaller runs of numerous new styles and colors made to customer order, explained Brent Hilleary, vice president and general manager of Sara Lee Bodywear. "New emphasis must be given to flexibility, on-time delivery, in-line quality control, and planning while maintaining a low cost structure," he continued. "The large-scale movement of goods across borders to realize the benefits of low-cost sewing requires a greater level of sophistication in scheduling and lot tracking." Faced with these challenges, SLKP saw a strategic need for MES systems.

SLKP began its implementation with its yarn-spinning process. "In the most advanced implementation, monitoring applications exist at each of six major processes to track production rates and in-line quality indicators," Hilleary said. A central monitoring system interfaces to process sub-systems, making information available to users plant-wide. "The central software includes statistical process control analysis of current process variables and statistical quality control analysis of defect data which permit the operators to correct problems as they occur."

Although the yarn-spinning application proved successful at SLKP, the company had far more difficulty implementing MES processes for textile applications. As Hilleary explained, the flexible nature of knit cloth limits the ability to utilize automation and in-line quality monitoring.

"The first attempt at a plant-wide textile implementation was not successful," he reported. "A highly automated, fully integrated plant was envisioned similar to what had been successfully accomplished with yarn manufacturing. However, the additional complexities and scope of the textile operation proved too daunting for the capabilities of the provider." SLKP abandoned the plant-wide project and went ahead instead with a smaller subsystem, running work order-based software and designed to integrate with future central plant control systems.

SLKP's strategic goals "require manufacturing to continue to reduce costs while increasing complexity, flexibility, quality, inventory reduction, and customer service," Hilleary said. Key lessons learned by SLKP in the process of implementing MES are:

think strategically,
educate top management early on,
use standard software packages wherever possible,
and partner with a supplier capable of implementing large, complex systems.

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