Reliable Source Industrial
The Summer/Fall of 2017 offered a break from my Masters program and opportunity to take a contract position within the sport product industry. The option was to either pursue a position domestically with a brand, or go overseas to work with a manufacturer. The more I spoke with industry veterans, it was clear that a position with a manufacturer for big brands would be a very exclusive opportunity. The ability to understand how product development decisions are executed at scale was an insightful perk of working with RSI.
Headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, RSI owns and operates production facilities in 5 countries. RSI has a strong commitment to sustainability and social responsibility, making it a modern and reliable partnership for brands.
RSI offers much more than just cut & sew operations. Their in-house development and innovation teams help brand partners source materials, provide construction innovations and rigorous quality control. Two U.S. partnerships with Studio 317 and 99Degrees Custom offer the flexibility to offer technical designs and manufacturing speed to market.
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While working with RSI, we completed projects at two of their production facilities.
Cambodia Facility
MANUFACTURING EXCELLENCE
The Cambodian facility is located in Phnom Penh, and is a mature and high producing facility. The task was to implement principles of lean manufacturing in order to decrease the changeover time between new styles on the sewing line.
The two indexes we were looking to positively affect were 1.) Changeover Bottlenecks, 2.) Rework Rate Stability.
The issues we identified in negatively affecting changeover time was knowledge transfer (re: tips & tricks from the sample room), training, changeover day preparedness.
The solutions we came up with enabled line managers to prepare for the changeover by building a new line map, providing tools to everyone and allowing for practice time by the sewers. Additionally, implementing procedures that enabled different teams at various development stages to share the information and knowledge they've gleaned from sampling the garment.
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The takeaway from this project surrounded the implementation of new processes and procedures. Line managers and sewers need to trust the people that are offering better ways to do things, otherwise, they simply will not adopt. Establishing trust and a good track record takes time and patience. Furthermore, making fool proof procedures requires reminding people to use them as intended. This means putting things in place so they can be visually shared with others down the production line.
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Vietnam Facility
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
RSI's Vietnam facility was recently built by the time of arrival and processes were still being put in place. We were tasked with two projects in establishing the new facility: 1.) Create and Implement a Heat Related Illness standard operating procedure and drill, 2.) Community Outreach project in Nam Dinh City.
It was summer in Vietnam and aggressively hot and humid. The cooling tools were still maturing and there were occasional days of warm conditions inside the facility. In case of a heat related illness, management and workers needed to understand what to look for and how to care for people in this state. We created signage to be posted around the facilities that encourage workers to drink enough water, depict signs of possible dehydration and provide the phone number of the nurses station.
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Furthermore, we were tasked with creating the standard operating procedure of what to do in the event of a heat related illness. The SOP key points were, prevention, awareness and first aid. The first aid aspect of the project meant creating a drill that could be run twice per year to walk workers through what to do. The drill would be supervised by the onsite medical staff and they would rate the performance of workers for continued improvement.
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The takeaways from this project were: 1.) Visual and Simple Communication Tools, 2.) Reality vs. Planned, understand how it will be played out, 3.) Create fool proof procedures to easily remind people of their responsibility.
Vietnam Facility
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
As a new facility in Vietnam, RSI wanted to establish it was part of the community and not just simply taking from it. We met with the local hospital administration and decided we would visit a small group of patients to provide a card, basket of toiletries and money donation. Though the planning of the visit was initially met with obstruction, seeing the smiles of these people, in the condition they were in, was well worth it. Our goal was to positively affect these people and their families, and create a playbook for future RSI employees to reference.
The people and management at RSI were incredibly gracious in hosting me in Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia. I only have the utmost respect and gratitude for the time spent over there and the time they took out of their busy schedules to teach me about apparel production and facility management.
