Sewing Machine Process

Sewing machine consists with production or sewing lines and the packing or finishing section. Garment manufacturing process start with the pre-production meeting, basically this meeting held before start cutting.

Pre-Production meeting

Pre production meeting will link the merchandising & development with the production, which guide and provide customers requirement to production to follow.

The main purpose of this Pre-Production meeting is to share information and difficulties faced during the development stage with all concern people.

Auto Textile PP meeting will be arranged by the central planning department and meeting minutes will be taken by the planner.

During the meeting discuss the delivery and production plan, sample comments and approval sample will be present to the meeting by sample room, trim card will be approved during the meeting by quality responsible by reviewing the buyer approvals. Further sample room will present approval sample and technical package to the production during this meeting. Technical people will give the instruction to production people how to do the production. Quality manager will explain the critical quality points should maintain during the production.

Production supervisor will be attending to the meeting with the supervisor sample and quality department comment sheet and this will be review in the meeting when discussing quality points.

Line feeding & Mock-up system

During the feeding technician will test the machine setting and teach the operator how to stitch. At this movement in line QI will make sure SPI & appearance of the sewing. Once the operators comes to the desired level of the quality, technician and in line QI will put one good piece as mock-up sample which operators should follow rest of the order and this will be applied mainly on the critical operations. Once the sample select technician, QI, supervisor, mechanic has to sign on the mock up card and assure all aspect of the operation being achieved, after that operator has to sign on the mock-up sheet accepting the requirement of the operation.  QI and technician are responsible for mention any critical points on the mock-up sheet which should follow by operator. After that mock-up and the sheet will be hang in front of the machine for the ease of operator view. Once this is process finished only technician can feed the next operation.  Putting mock-up will be applicable only for the Critical operations and depend on the complexity of the style quality manager will decides the number of points mock-up should be.

 First Production Meeting

First Production meeting is another technique that Auto Textile used to control the quality of the product. After line feeding finish, first out put will be reviewed by the production, technical & quality teams against the customer specifications and sample to assure quality standard. If there are any deviation will be address immediately by the team and then only continue the production.

At this stage first in line QI will measure & check the out put and make a report, with this report and garments this meeting will be held. First production meeting minute will be taken by the Quality officer of the section.

 Sewing quality control

During the production continue will use different systems to assure the quality of the product. Auto Textile has in line quality controller who will closely monitor and control the measurement & quality each & every process.

Trim card

Each and every line provided the approved trim card and approved/ similar sample. During production input supervisor will check each and every input raw material randomly against the trim card before release to operators. If any raw material not matches with trim card he/she will stop and informed to quality and production officer, if the case is serious will informed to quality manager for corrective action. If the items are rejected will return to the stores or cutting. In line QI will do random check the out put with trim card & sample minimum twice a day.

Traffic light system

Each production line has one in line Quality Inspector and responsible to maintain traffic light system.

In-line QI must conduct the random inspection all the work station hourly or once in two hours, the frequency of the inspection based on the operation difficulty & damage level but minimum 4 time a day each operation should audit.

Traffic Light Process
Traffic Light Process

Base of the traffic light system is seven-zero audit that is randomly select seven pieces from the bundle and inspect if one or more defects found bundle will reject  and depend on the result red, green or yellow card will hand on the work station. Each work station consists with the hourly audit sheet and QI is responsible for the marking the result of the audit in this.

First inspection fails Quality inspector will informed to the supervisor and technician. Supervisor and technician are responsible for the corrective action and the duration of fixing the matter will be recorded. If third time inspection fail in the same operation Quality Inspector must stop the machine & informed to quality and production manager.  So production & quality manager has to provide solution with senior technician immediately.

Measurement procedure

In Line Quality Controller is responsible for maintain measurement of the garments. Minimum twice a day he has to measure the finish garment covering the 2pieces per size which produce in the particular day.

If the measurements are out of tolerance QC will made additional 10 measurements in the same point to verify the deviation. If this proves measurements are out of tolerance has to informed QA manager and he suppose to guide the corrective action.

End Table Inspection

100% end line inspection will be conduct by each and every end line table by the Quality Inspector. The main object of this inspection is to pass 100% reject free garments to Finishing. QI are trained to follow the cycle of checking to avoid missing any operation checking and take 100% Bottom Band measurement to make assure there is no garment size mixed-up. QC will responsible to mark all the findings in the end table report & line supervisor and officer has to monitor this report and take necessary corrective actions.

Audit at Sewing Section

Every 4 sewing line have one Q.C Auditor. Auto Textile uses 2.5 AQL systems to audit complete garments of each line and for check workmanship & measurement. In this stage Auditor should considering approval standard, Buyer Comments, PO sheet, and Swatch card. The main purpose of this inspection is to identify any major mistake in very beginning.

In-line Inspection Packing

When we start poly in packing section we do in-line inspection. The main purpose of this inspection to check & confirm the folding method, hungering (If Need) ,Price ticket placement, Hang tag placement, poly etc. this stage we are using as per reference by buyers requirements.

Assortment Check

When we start assortment we do random assortment check. The main purpose of this inspection is to check & confirm the assortment. In this Stage we also check Shipping mark of Carton & item qty in a carton. To do this job we maintain the below format.

Packing audit random

Finishing Table Inspection

Here inspection is done randomly after Attached packing material & before send to carton. In this stage we take random under bust & Cup measurement for the all kind’s bra and waist, side seam & leg opening measurement for under wear.

Shipment Sample Inspection

In every style buyer require shipment sample from bulk production. The shipment sample is very important for any order because after getting this sample buyer check this sample properly & confirm us to ship the goods. One quality inspector is confirming the workmanship & measurement of shipment sample.

Pre-Final Inspection

When finish 80% carton packing, conduct in house Pre-Final Inspection as per 2.5 AQL systems. The main object of this inspection is to check & confirm garments workmanship, Measurement, packing accessories & packing method before complete full boxing.

Note: For all types of random audits use 2.5 AQL system for major defects and 3 minor defects will consider as 1 major where unless specified.

General Guidelines

All measurement must meet specifications assigned by the Q.A Department (Auto Textile Limited) or specific buyer’s requirements. Auto has tolerances for all measurements. Measurements outside of tolerances are unacceptable.

Garments should be measured on a clean, flat, smooth surface, never on other fabric, carpet or other surface that may distort the garments.

NoDocumentSectionResponsibilitySupervision
1Daily Quality Audit sheetSewingIn Line Quality InspectorQuality Officer
2Hourly corrective Action reportSewingIn-Line Quality InspectorTechnician & Production Officer
3Measurement Report SheetSewingIn-Line Quality InspectorQuality Officer
4Traffic Light Highest 3 defects reportSewingIn-Line Quality InspectorQuality Officer
5Mock-up SheetSewingIn-Line Quality InspectorQuality Officer
6End Line Inspection ReportSewingQuality InspectorQuality Officer
7Hourly End Line AQL ReportSewingAQL AuditorQuality Officer
8AQL Measurement Audit reportSewingAQL AuditorQuality Officer
9Top 3 Offender ReportSewingQuality OfficerQuality Manager
10Daily Quality Meeting ReportSewingQuality OfficerQuality Manager
11First Out Put Analysis ReportSewingQuality OfficerQuality Manager
12Finishing Quality Audit ReportFinishingQuality InspectorQuality Officer
13Packing Inspection ReportFinishingQuality InspectorQuality Officer
14Pre-final inspection Report how a sewing machine worksFinishingQuality OfficerQuality Manager