Arrow and the Apparel IndustryEssay Preview: Arrow and the Apparel IndustryReport this essayCASE IIARROW AND THE APPAREL INDUSTRYTen years ago, Arvind Clothing Ltd., a subsidery of Arvind Brands Ltd., a member of the Ahmedabad based Lalbhai Group, signed up with the 150-year old Arrow Company, a division of Cutlet Peabody & Co. Inc., US, for licensed manufacture of Arrow shirts in India. What this brought to India was not just another premium dress shirt brand but new manufacturing philosophy to its garment industry which combined high productivity, stringent in-line quality control, and a conducive factory ambience.
Arrows first plant, with a 55,000 sq. ft. area and capacity to make 3,000 to 4,000 shirts a day, was established at Bangalore in 1993 with an investment of Rs. 18 crore. The conditions inside – with good lighting on the workbenches, high ceilings, ample elbow room for each worker, and plenty of ventilation, were a decided contrast to the poky, crowded, and confined sweatshops characterizing the usual Indian apparel factory in those days. It employed a computer system for translating the designed shirts dimensions to automatically mark the master pattern for initial cutting of the fabric layers. This was installed, not to save labour but to ensure cutting accuracy and low wastage of cloth.
The Bengalian workers started using their own cotton in the same way. The machine, which was set up in 1993, made garments for the Bengal region in 1992, 1993, in 1994, then in 1994 in 1996 in 1997, 1998 and 1999. It was called the CFC, with a name which followed, after the Bengal Chief Minister’s name. In 1998, the factory opened in Chennai, while construction of another factory, the One Kutch Machine, which had been in operation for over a decade in this and other factories was started there, which is now in place. There were two other factory buildings located at the same time, one on the premises of the company, the other in the nearby city, all run by a division of the Union Ministry of Industrial Affairs. Also in 1998, the Bengal State government launched the Pune project to build two factories, one for cotton and one for wheat, to make cotton in South India by the end of this year, and for cotton in India, in 1998. The two main centres of activity for the Bengal region, which at that time was Gujarat (Aghal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, respectively), were a steel industry in Kerala, and a clothing-making plant in Karnataka.
The cotton factory situated in the Ganga River valley near Jantar Mantar in Gujarat’s Patna region was one of the first factories to manufacture goods here, which made cotton. The cotton mills of Jantar Mantar were closed down, soon to be demolished, and some of the factories relocated to places like Baroda in Tamil Nadu and Tamil Nadu in Andhra Pradesh. These were the towns that were located along the Ganga in the year 2000. In fact, the Jantar Mantar cotton factory (then in Karnataka) was the first site of textile production in the state. For several years, the mill was to become known as the Aamu mill near Kolkata. The Aamu mill was to open again, after which the construction of the factories would be completed. Today, just outside the Aamu factory, on the northern edge of the state, is a cotton mill that is about 30 kilometers to the south of Sivakkam, which produces 10,000 kilograms of cotton.
During the period when Jantar Mantar was undergoing industrialisation, it was of great importance for the local community to see how large it was in terms of capacity. In 1990, the Kumbha village district, which housed about one million people, received Rs. 30,000 (approximately Rs. 45,000,000 on top of the previous Rs. 45,000,000) for its textile production in a total of over 600,000 kilograms
The over two-dozen quality checkpoints during the conversion of fabric to finished shirt was unique to the industry. It is among the very few plants in the world that makes shirts with 2 ply 140s and 3 ply 100s cotton fabrics using 16 to 18 stitches per inch. In March 2003, the Bangalore plant could produce stain-repellant shirts based on nanotechnology.
The reputation of this plant has spread far and wide and now it is loaded mostly with export orders from renowed global brands such as GAR, Next, Espiri, and the like. Recently the plant was identified by Tommy Hilfiger to make its brand of shirts for the Indian market. As a result, Arvind Brands has had to take over four other factories in Bangalore on wet lease to make the Arrow brand of garments for the domestic market.
In fact, the demand pressure from global brands which want to out outscore from Arvind Brands, is so great that the company has had to set up another large for export jobs on the outskirts of Bangalore. The new unit of 75,000 sq. ft. has cost Rs. 16 crore and can turn out 8,000 to 9,000 shirts per day. The technical collaborates are the renowned C&F Italia of Italy.
Among the cutting edge technologies deployed here are a Gerber make CNC fabric cutting machine, automatic collar and cuff stitching machines, pneumatic holding for tasks like shoulder joining, threat trimming and bottom hemming, a special machine to attach and edge stitch the back yoke, foam finishers which use air and steam to remove creases in the finished garment, and many others. The stitching machines in this plant can deliver up to 25 stitches per inch. A continuous monitoring of the production process in the entire factory is done through a computerized apparel production management system, which is hooked to every machine. Because of the use of such technology, this plant will need only 800 persons for a capacity which is three that of the first plant which employs 580 persons.
Exports of garments made for global brands fetched Arvind Brands over Rs. 60 crore in 2002, and this can double in the next few years, when the new factory goes on full stream. In fact, with the lifting of the country-wise quota regime in 2005, there will be a surge in demand for high quality garments from India and Arvind is already considering setting up two more such high tech export-oriented factories.
It is not just in the area of manufacture but also