Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. is a professional underwear sourcing & supply-chain management company based in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang knitwear cluster of south-east China. Founded by Will Lin, who has worked in the apparel trade since 2004, the company has been exporting since 2009 and was incorporated in Xiamen in 2013. It runs its own liaison office in Jinjiang and works with a network of BSCI & OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified partner factories to serve retailers and brands across Europe, the US and Australia.
“Zero Defect” and “Free Quality” are advanced modern quality management concepts. “Doing things right the first time” has become the quality goal concept pursued by many advanced companies in the world. The lean production method of Unitex underwear programme believes that high quality boxer shorts underwear should start from design, and quality control should start from the source. Only by carrying out quality control of the whole process and eliminating quality problems can it be possible to achieve the goal of “zero defect” and reflect the true meaning of free quality. The lean production method does not satisfy any level of quality, pursues the perfection of quality, strives for perfection, takes “zero defect” as the goal of struggle, and regards continuous improvement as the fundamental way to achieve zero defect.
Unitex underwear programme lean production pursues seven “zero” goals, namely: “zero” waste of man-hours in production conversion, “zero” inventory, “zero” waste, “zero” defect, “zero” failure, “zero” stagnation, and “zero” disaster. Unitex underwear manufactures believes that it is impossible to fully implement factory production without fundamentally guaranteeing quality. Lean manufacturing methods require just-in-time production to prevent over-manufacturing, make-ahead and minimize inventory of finished goods and those produced by collaborating plants. An important prerequisite for just-in-time production is the ability to produce defect-free products.
Unitex underwear lean production quality control system provides reliable quality assurance for production through strict process quality control, eliminates potential and exposed problems in the production system that affect just-in-time production through continuous quality improvement, and makes the production system run the reliability and stability of the system are greatly improved, which offsets the risk to the operation of the production system due to the reduction of inventory.
Lean production is not only a production method with the main goal of minimizing the resources occupied by enterprise production and reducing enterprise management and operating costs, but also a concept and a culture.
Implementing lean production is a process of determination to pursue perfection and a process of pursuit of excellence. It is a spiritual force that supports the life of individuals and enterprises, and it is also a state of self-satisfaction in the endless learning process. Its goal is to strive for perfection, perfection, and the endless pursuit of the ultimate goal of seven “zeros”.
The essence of lean production is the management process, including the optimization of personnel organization and management, vigorously simplifying the middle management, carrying out organizational flattening reform, and reducing indirect production personnel; promoting production balance and synchronization, realizing zero inventory and flexible production; implementing full production the quality assurance system of the process (including the entire supply chain) achieves zero defects; reduces and bring down waste in any link to achieve zero waste; and finally realizes the pull-type just-in-time production method.
Unitex’s company Lean production is characterized by the elimination of all waste, the pursuit of excellence and continuous improvement. Remove all useless things in the production process. The principle of arrangement of each worker and his post is that it must add value, and remove all non-value-added posts.
Streamlining is its core, streamlining all non-value-added work in product development, design, production, and management, aiming to respond quickly to market demands with the best quality, lowest cost, and highest efficiency.
The Superiority of Lean Production and Its Significance
Compared with mass production methods, the advantages of lean production methods adopted in Japan are mainly manifested in the following aspects:
- The required human resources, whether in product development, production system, or other departments of the factory, can be reduced to at least 1/2 compared with factories under mass production;
- New product development cycle—minimum can be reduced to 1/2 or 2/3;
- The work-in-progress inventory in the production process – the minimum can be reduced to 1/10 of the general level under mass production;
- The space occupied by the factory – the minimum can be reduced to 1/2 of the mass production method;
- Finished product inventory – the minimum can be reduced to 1/4 of the average inventory level under mass production;
6. Product quality – can be greatly improved;
The lean production method is a production technology and management technology that thoroughly pursues the rationality and efficiency of production and can flexibly produce high-quality products that meet various needs. Its basic principles and many methods are of positive significance to the manufacturing industry.
The core of lean production, that is, the basic ideas about production planning and control and inventory management, also plays an important role in enriching and developing modern production management theories.
Characteristics of lean production management methods
1. Pull just-in-time production
Production starts from the needs of the end user.
Emphasize logistics balance, pursue zero inventory, and require that parts processed in the previous process can immediately enter the next process.
The rhythm in production can be manually intervened and controlled to ensure the logistics balance in production (for each process, it is to ensure the timely supply of subsequent processes).
Due to the use of pull production, the planning and scheduling in production are essentially completed by each production unit itself, and centralized planning is not adopted in form, but coordination between production units during operation is extremely necessary.
2. Comprehensive Quality Management
Emphasize that quality is produced rather than inspected, and the final quality is guaranteed by process quality management.
Quality inspection and control in the production process are carried out in each process. The focus is on cultivating the quality awareness of each employee to ensure timely detection of quality problems.
If quality problems are found in the production process, according to the situation, production can be stopped immediately until the problem is solved, so as to ensure that there is no invalid processing of substandard products.
For the quality problems that arise, the related technical and production personnel are generally organized as a group to work together to solve them as soon as possible.
3. Team work method
Every employee is not only executing orders from superiors at work. What is more important is to actively participate and play a role in decision-making and auxiliary decision-making.
The principles of organizing teams are not entirely divided by administrative organization, but mainly by business relationships.
Team members emphasize one specialization and multiple abilities, and are required to be familiar with the work of other staff members in the team to ensure smooth coordination of work.
The evaluation of team members’ work performance is influenced by the evaluation within the team.
The basic atmosphere of team work is trust, which is mainly based on a long-term supervision and control, and avoids the verification of each step of the work to improve work efficiency.
The organization of the team is changing. Different teams are established for different things. The same person may belong to different teams.
4. Concurrent Engineering
During the design and development of the product, the conceptual design, structural design, process design, final demand, etc. are combined to ensure that the required quality is completed at the fastest speed.
The work is done by the related project team. During the process, team members arrange their own work, but they can provide feedback on a regular basis or at any time and coordinate and solve problems that arise
Feedback and coordination of the entire project in accordance with appropriate information system tools. Utilize modern CIM technology to assist the parallelization of project processes during product development and development.
The ultimate goal of lean manufacturing
“Zero waste” is the ultimate goal of lean production, which is embodied in seven aspects of PICQMDS. The goals are detailed as follows:
(1) “Zero” waste of man-hours in production conversion (Products -multi-variety mixed-flow production)
Reduce the waste of product switching in the processing process and the conversion time of the assembly line to “zero” or close to “zero”.
(2) “Zero” Inventory (Inventory -Reduced Inventory)
Streamline processing and assembly, eliminate intermediate inventory, change market estimated production to synchronous production on order, and reduce product inventory to zero.
(3) “Zero” waste (Cost -comprehensive cost control)
Eliminate the waste of redundant manufacturing, handling and waiting to achieve zero waste.
(4) “Zero” defective (Quality -high quality )
Defects are not detected in the check bit, but should be eliminated at the source of generation, in pursuit of zero defects.
(5) “Zero” failure (Maintenance – improve operation rate)
Eliminate the downtime of mechanical equipment and achieve zero failure.
(6) “Zero” stagnation (Delivery – quick response, short delivery period)
Minimize lead time. To this end, it is necessary to eliminate intermediate stagnation and achieve “zero” stagnation.
(7) “Zero” disaster (Safety – safety first)
People, factories and products are comprehensively inspected for safety prevention, and the Safety inspection system is implemented.
The basic theoretical thinking of lean production is in line with the basic theoretical thinking of modern quality management. Completely eliminating waste and improving productivity is the high-quality goal required by comprehensive quality management. It can be said that lean production must be guided by the basic idea of comprehensive quality management. Without the basic theoretical guidance of comprehensive quality management, it is impossible to create a real lean production method. On the contrary, if there is only the basic theoretical guidance of comprehensive quality management, without the pursuit of profit, then the enterprise will lose the driving force for development. The enterprise without development motivation cannot adapt to the ever-changing demand changes of the market, and it cannot realize the innovation and development of the enterprise, it will be eliminated by the market economy, which means that the advanced production management theory must be combined with the advanced quality management theory. Only when the two are closely combined can they reflect the mutual value and jointly enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of the enterprise.
We, Unitex Underwear, are a sourcing partner, one of the best underwear suppliers in China. We always insist on the priority of quality and keep improving. We specialize in the production of high quality cotton underwear. If you are looking for a cooperative factory or supplier, we are one of your best choices.
· Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. — OEM & ODM underwear sourcing partner