1. Abstract
Auditing a Dyehouse
There are several different reasons for auditinga dyehouse:
- ISOaccreditation and registration
- Part of aProductivity Improvement programme
- DefiningStandard Operation procedures (SOP)
- Installing amanagement system which maintains SOPs
- Definingcontrol procedures to attain and maintain Right First Time production
- Defining& installing procedures for correcting faults.
The overall objectives are usually to:
- Ensure thedyehouse runs at maximum possible productivity
- Ensure thatSOPs are in place to maintain maximum possible efficiency
- Ensure thatwritten procedures are in place for all working operations
- Ensure thatall written procedures satisfy the requirements of the targeted ISOaccreditation.
The overall Business objective is quite simple.
To make the maximum possible profit
It is sometimes difficult for a dyehousemanagement to carry out its own audit.
They do not have the time or the detachment.
They often feel the need to import anindependent set of eyes to oversee the audit.
These needs have spawned a separate ConsultancyIndustry to fulfil those requirements.
How would I know if my Dyehouse needs a Doctor ?
Can YOU answer YES to any of the following questions?
- Do you have niggling production problems which dont seem to go away?
- Worse still,do you have niggling production problems which go away, only to return both without apparent reason?
- Do you findthat that, from time to time, you seem to be making more shading additions thanusual?
- Do you haveshade reproducibility problems which your reactive dye supplier has not beenable to entirely resolve?
- Are youabsolutely sure that you the optimum dyeing methods in all shades, and with theshortest possible processing times?
- Are you absolutely certain about allyour dye recipes, and trichromatic combinations?
- Are youabsolutely sure that your automated processes are bases upon the optimumaddition profiles?
- Areyou aware of the importance of getting the simple basics right before youautomate?
With one of the dyeings arbitrarily chosen as the controldyeing, the instrumental comparisons of the other four dyeings are shown in Fig6.
Fig 6. 6 Drums of Different Manufacture OFTHE SAME DYESTUFF.
Fig 7. Controlled Laboratory Dyeings (Split Dyebath).
| Drum Number | Dyeing Colour Difference |
| 1 | Control |
| 2 | Delta E = 2.7 |
| 3 | Delta E = 2.3 |
| 4 | Delta E = 3.1 |
| 5 | Delta E = 1.7 |
Pass / Fail Tolerance = Delta E 1.0
In other words, the use of the dyes recommended by theconsultants would indeed have reduced invoice costs but would have had asignificant (and deleterious) impact on the rate of Right First Time inproduction.
10. The Evolution of the Dyehouse Doctor.
Several Turkish Industrialists have been disappointed withthe results of conventional European consultants.
Dyehouse Solutions International were approached and askedto supply a completely different approach.
And so evolved what the leading Turkish business men arecalling Dyehouse Doctors.
Dyehouse Solutions International address (what they believeto be) more pertinent issues:
- How do Iincrease my Right First Time Rate?
- How do Iincrease my capacity, without capital investment in new machinery?
- How do Imake sure my staff is fully trained?
- How do Idevelop the confidence to try for business on more difficult substrates(Mercerised Cotton, Cotton/Lycra, Viscose/Lycra, Tencel) ?
It represented a Consultancy format in which the skills of the European Consultants were honed in a declining market.
The need then became for assistance in:
- downsizing (reduced staffing)
- outsourcing
- diversification
- reducing costs of incoming raw materials.
We shall return to the matter of quality of incoming raw materials shortly.
Before then let us consider parallel developments of consultancy in developing economies.
8. Conventional European Consultancy in Developing Economies.
As the centres of the processing industry switched to the East (China and India for example), European Consultants assumed that they could market their experience within these developments.
Unfortunately, many Eastern dyehouses were acutely disappointed with the value of the assistance they received.
It is almost as if they are trying to impose their culture on ours and it just does not work was the frequent cry.
9. Reactive Dye Manufacture and Supply: Awareness of Pitfalls.
Against this background of market forces, and alignment of external consultancy.
Let us return to the question of incoming raw materials, and the concept of ZERO VARIANCE with respect to reactive dye supply.
How does absolute quality impact upon Right First Time in the Dyehouse?
This is best illustrated by a direct practical example.
Dyehouse Solutions were recently called to a factory after the failure of European consultants.
This factory was a commission dyehouse in Southern Europe, and all its production was exported to the EEC.
The cellulosic substrates involved were:
- Cotton
- Mercerised cotton
- Viscose
- Cotton / Lycra
- Viscose Lycrs
All shades were inspected for shade and strength both visually and instrumentally. When instrumental assessment was used, the same Pass / Fail tolerance was required by all its customers.
Pass / Fail = Delta E 1.0 (CMC 2:1)
On inspection of reactive dye stocks we found 5 drums of the same reactive yellow dye; representing 5 different manufacturing batches from the same dyestuff supplier. (South East Asia) (Fig 5).
Samples were taken from each drum, and used to produce dyeings in the laboratory under strictly controlled conditions.
The dyes were applied in a single dye recipe, to represent the least critical test; and using a split dyebath technique to minimise errors due to weighing out dye for dyebath.
In other words, how do I:
- Reduce my Total Production Cost?
- Shorten my lead times?
- Increase my Productivity?
- Improve my Profitability?
- Increase my
Capacity without the capital expense of purchasing new machinery?
11. Right First Time.
This can mean many different thins to different people.
Increasing Right First Time is relatively easy when the standards of requirement are low.
It is much more difficult when standards are higher.
The following achievements may illustrate what is possible in the most recent dyehouse audits..
Table 1: Three Case Studies (achieved by Dyehouse Solutions International).
|
Dyehouse Location |
Retail Specification |
Right First Time BEFORE |
Right First Time AFTER |
|
Turkey 1 |
European Export |
67% |
93% |
|
Turkey 2 |
European Export |
73% |
94% |
|
Indonesia 1 (Japanese Owned) |
Japanese Export |
53% |
93% |
12. Concluding Remarks.
TQM is an effective marketing tool.
It also serves as an extremely effective internal discipline.
Installing a TQM system is similar to installing automation.
they only repeat what was done previously.
Let us not forget Ottos law of automation.
It is vitally important to ensure that the basics are right first before installing either TQM or automation.
This can only be achieved by a full Dyehouse audit which should cover all the basic issues.
- Quality of Dyehouse water (particularly bicarbonate content)
- Quality of incoming raw materials
- Optimum application processes in both Laboratory and Bulk
- Optimised washing-off profiles
- Accurate weighing of substrate and chemicals
- Well advised storage of dyes (particularly samples used as standards)
- Well advised use of Colour Measurement
- Fully documented SOPs
- Optimised house keeping practices and SOPs understood and agreed by all staff
- Staff trained to accept ownership of responsibility.
To read more articles on Textile, Industry, Technical Textile, Dyes & Chemicals, Machinery, Fashion, Apparel, Technology, Retail, Leather, Footwear & Jewellery, Software and General please visit https://articles.fibre2fashion.com
To promote your company, product and services via promotional article, follow
this link: https://www.fibre2fashion.com/services/article-writing-service/content-promotion-services.asp
- Are you absolutely sure that you know which are the most critically important basic issues?
- What control checks do you make in production dyeings?
- Are you perfectly comfortable with these?
- Are you
aware of the significance of fixation pH, and how some dyestuff suppliers may
have mislead you?
- Are you aware of the dangers of the presence of bicarbonate in your softened water?
- Do you know of the Bicarbonate Threat?
- Do you know
how much the bicarbonate content of your softened water varies from day to day,
and within each day?
- Do you ever
run into fastness problems with dyes which you have previously used with success?
- Do you ever
have production batches rejected at the garment confection stage which had
passed all your QC checks?
- Do you know how to test your preparation processes to avoid this?
DOES YOUR DYEHOUSE NEED A HEALTH CHECK?
Who should I call?
- Well who would you call if you yourself felt unwell?
- Would you send for a Doctor, or a Consultant?
- And what would the Doctor check first?
- The Basics (temperature, pulse, heart beat)?
DOES YOUR DYEHOUSE NEED THE BASICS CHECKING?
We are not consultants.
* We do not presume to tell you which dyes to use, which chemical auxiliaries to buy, which machines to use, or which suppliers to favour.
* We check your Basics.
* And give you an honest appraisal of you current resources.
* We ask you what your aspirations are, and would be available to help you set up (and train) an internal team dedicated to achieving those ambitions.
* If you yourselves decide you need to change any of your basic resources then we can offer independent, and impartial, advice.
SOME PEOPLE HAVE CALLED US DYEHOUSE DOCTORS.
2. Article
Benchmarking a Textile Processing House
A Metamorphosis in the Consultant's Role for Auditing and TQM
1. Summary
Total Quality Management (TQM) is an admirable concept in both design and objective.
It became prevalent in European production industries throughout the 1980s.
In the eyes of many people it became a necessity.
One such industry was the Textile processing industry.
TQM was, and always will be, a marketing tool.
TQM is not a problem solver.
TQM is designed to provide a necessary assurance of quality to recipients of production i.e. the supplied.
However, TQM needs also to be applied to incoming raw materials i.e. the supplier.
Referring specifically to the Textile processing house (the Dyehouse) many businesses found it difficult (or even impossible) to install TQM systems without external advice.
Quite naturally they looked to consultants for that advice.
This paper attempts to trace the parallel developments of TQM systems and external consultancy organisations striving to underpin TQM within the Textile wet processing industry.
It differentiates between the role of consultancy in developed economies and developing economies.
The analysis leads to the very important differentiation between TOTAL quality and ABSOLUTE quality.
If this difference is not fully understood, then the impact on Productivity and Profitability of the Dyehouse can be drastically severe.
The main thesis of this paper is to qualify the importance and needs of Dyehouse auditing ; covering house keeping and other related issues which can lead not only to achieving ISO accreditation, but more importantly to achieving an ISO accreditation on a fully optimised business base.
Education and awareness are the key words.
2. Background: Auditing a Dyehouse
There are several different reasons for auditing a dyehouse :
- ISO accreditation and registration
- Part of a Productivity Improvement programme
- Defining Standard Operation procedures (SOP)
- Installing a management system which maintains SOPs
- Defining control procedures to attain and maintain Right First Time production
- Defining & installing procedures for correcting faults.
The overall objectives are usually to :
- Ensure the dyehouse runs at maximum possible productivity
- Ensure that SOPs are in place to maintain maximum possible efficiency
- Ensure that written procedures are in place for all working operations
- Ensure that all written procedures satisfy the requirements of the targeted ISO accreditation.
The overall Business objective is quite simple.
To make the maximum possible profit
It is sometimes difficult for a dyehouse management to carry out its own audit.
They do not have the time or the detachment.
They often feel the need to import an independent set of eyes to oversee the audit.
These needs have spawned a separate Consultancy Industry to fulfil those requirements.
This paper reviews the trends in European consultancy in providing Dyehouse Audits, and defines a new regime of consultancy more suitable to the needs in developing economies.
The Dyehouse Consultant has undergone a process of metamorphosis into the Dyehouse Doctor.
3. Quality
Total Quality Management is a vital marketing tool for any production business.
It provides a stable assurance for the clients of that business.
Before beginning any study in depth, it will be necessary to explore the difference between Total Quality and Absolute Quality; and this will be covered later by specific real time examples.
However, before we explore the differentiation, let us try to define quality.
Now referring specifically to the production of dyed and finished textiles.
(And in this context, white is considered to be an important colour).
Within the field of dyed and finished textiles, what does Quality mean ?
In some quarters, quality is defined by such intangible features as :
- size
- lustre
- handle
- surface appearance
- dimensional stability.
But these features are subjective.
Any assessment which is subjective cannot be quantified.
If it cannot be quantified, then it cannot be measured.
If it cannot be measured, then it cannot be improved.
And also, if it cannot be measured it cannot be accredited in a TQM system.
Let us propose that in the context of dyeing, Quality simply means conformance to customer requirements Fig 1.
Fig 1. Objective Definition of Quality
3.1 The Objective Definition of Quality.
Defined in this way, quality can be:
- measured
- monitored
- the data can form the basis of an improvement programme
- and the procedures which bring improved performance can be written into a TQM programme.
Thus, any one dyehouse (particularly in the commission sector) with a myriad of customers could have different levels of tolerance for each individual customer.
A shade difference from target may be perfectly acceptable for one customer, but unacceptable for another.
Conformance to requirements might be more demanding for one customer than it is for another.
But quality in each case would be the measured by the same criterion meeting the particular requirements with first time production for each individual customer, at each level of tolerance.
3.2 Total Quality Management (TQM)
TQM is concerned with procedures.
The key features of TQM are:
- attention to detail
- ownership of responsibility
- monitoring performance
- solving problems at source rather than trying correct them at some later stage, or (even worse) passing them on to a third party down line.
The award of a TQM certificate by the appropriate body requires written (and agreed) procedures for all stages in:
- production
- documentation
- invoicing
- business support systems
- receiving customer complaints
- dealing with customer complaints
- responding to customer complaints
- monitoring incoming raw materials
- monitoring goods outward
- monitoring outgoing waste material.
There should be such written procedures for:
- production
- laboratory
- front office
- back office
- warehousing
- goods outward
- ongoing quality auditing
- correction of non conformance.
Each written procedure must allocate responsibility for action:
- to an individual (by company function)
- or group of individuals
- who, what, when and how.
TQM is designed to provide consistency within specified and documented levels.
It states that (within a specified tolerance) whatever was produced yesterday will be produced tomorrow.
It does not, and never will, say that what was produced yesterday was the best possible, the most efficient, the most productive or the most profitable.
4. Concept and Practice
Total Quality Management (TQM) as guaranteed by ISO accreditation is an admirable concept, and powerful marketing tool. It expresses much more than image, it proposes assurance.
It is admirable in concept and can be admirable in practice.
There are, however, dangers and misconceptions.
The Dyehouse should be concerned with TQM in two directions.
Not only is the TQM of its product important to its customers, but also TQM applied to its own suppliers can govern performance.
Let us consider this last point for a moment, with respect to just one of the many important incoming raw materials.
Let us consider TQM with respect to the incoming reactive dyes.
5. Reactive Dye Specification.
Ideally the dyer wants to receive a dye of identical quality from one delivery to another, and to every delivery.
Quality, in this sense, refers to absolute quality.
Each delivery should be identical with respect to :
- shade and colour content
- optical strength
- dyeing performance
- dustiness
- solubility
- storage stability.
This is the concept of ZERO VARIANCE and it leads us onto a discussion of the use of reactive dyes, and how absolute quality impacts upon Right First Time in the Dyehouse.
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, reactive dyes were provided mainly by European and Japanese suppliers (Traditional suppliers).
The cost of Research and Development, and toxicological testing to satisfy increasingly stringent environmental legislation forced dyestuff prices upwards.
When the Taiwanese, Korean and Indian manufacturers joined the reactive dye supply race, their costs (and dyestuff prices) were considerably lower.
Furthermore, these non-traditional suppliers claimed their dyes to be exactly the same as the traditional counterparts.
Sadly, these claims were not justified.
Fig 2. Variations in Supply: CI Reactive Yellow 184
Variations in Strength of Commercial dye samples.
Number
Samples
At Strength
Strength = Optical Strength versus notional standard of 100.
Fig 3. Variations in Supply : CI Reactive Red 120
Variations in Strength of Commercial dye samples.
Number
Samples
at Strength
Fig 4. Variations in Supply: CI Reactive Red 141
Variations in Strength of Commercial dye samples.
Number
Samples
at Strength
Fig 5. Variations in Supply: CI Reactive Blue 71
Variations in Strength of Commercial dye samples.
Number
Samples
at Strength
Several large European and American consultancy concerns advised their clients to use these dyes, at considerably reduced invoice cost in order to reduce total cost.
The impact of these recommendations will be revealed later by recourse to an actual Case Study.
6. Conventional European Consultancy throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Forgetting theory and concept, let us take a brief look at the real world.
We have already discussed how dyehouses wishing to install TQM systems frequently turn to external advice and direction.
What were the strengths and weaknesses of existing consultancy at that time?
In the 1980s, the major reactive dyestuff suppliers were European and Japanese.
At that time also, the major textile processors (in the higher value added market sectors) were also European.
The two highest exporters of finished textiles were Germany and Italy.
At that time, European dyehouses were looking to expand capacity.
The help they needed from Consultancy was guidance in purchasing equipment coming from advanced machinery developments, and installing automation.
This defined the role of Consultancy at that time.
Parallel to this, there was an emerging presence of Asia.
The 1990s saw the emergence of the Taiwanese in reactive dye manufacture (Asia), and of Turkey as a significant exporter of finished cotton textiles (Gateway between Europe and Asia).
In 1983, for example, Turkey lay 23rd in the list of European exporters.
In 1993 it was in 4th position.
7. Conventional European Consultancy in Declining Economies.
Let us consider the decline in European wet processing.
It cannot be blamed on a lack of Total Quality Management, for these systems were prevalent.
It was said to be brought about by spiralling costs, particularly with respect to labour and effluent treatment.
The decline of the European processors led to a significant culture shift in the requirements of Consultancy.
Comments