Seru Production System: A Conceptual Model Proposal for the Clothing Industry

Introduction

The historical development of production systems, which are in parallel with technological developments, has reached a different dimension when it comes to today's competitive world, both due to the ever-changing demands of the customers and the presence of technologies aimed at meeting these demands. Production Systems have gone through very important stages since the 18th century. Before the Industrial Revolution, production had been traditionally done in job shops. Production had been carried out by the craftsmen in the job shops. The craftsmen used his mastery skills to dominate the production of the product. Handcrafts and craftsmanship were used in job shop and artisan works. In this production period, which was based on qualified labor more than capital, the transition from manufacturing into production was made primarily with the development of the division of labor.

Manufacturing refers to manual production from the combination of the Latin “manu & factum’’ words. Today, manufacture can be defined as “the process of producing large numbers and quantities of goods by using machinery especially in factory” (Combley, 2011: 520). The difference that emerges when compared with the first meaning of the word shows the change of the concept over time. Nowadays, the manufacturing word has gained the meaning of machine-assisted production of any good.

The first phase seen as a transformation in the industry was the discovery of steam engine by James Watt in the 1760s and the use of steam power in the service of humanity. This was a great revolution for humanity and a giant step in the transition to mechanization. In the 18th century, Adam Smith, while arguing that each worker would work more effectively when he did only one job, divided the work into smaller pieces with his theory of specialization. These parts were suitable for the desired function where used. Thus, everyone got rid of producing their own piece. Standard parts can be produced in large quantities in certain places and therefore much cheaper. The production units who need these parts, have purchased these parts and started using them directly in their production. At that time, these replaceable parts have accelerated production tremendously and provided a transition from a skilled craftsman to a cheaper labor force. And then the concept of division of labor has developed according to specialization.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the concepts of standardization and interchangeability was developed and implemented. In this period, Frederick W. Taylor developed the concept of Production Management, which is another important stage for manufacturing. Taylor, by examining the workers in the finest detail at work, formed the foundations of scientific management. Frank and Lillian Gilbreth have introduced the principles of motion economics and have defined micro-movements (Therblig). Henry Lee Gantt developed the Gantt diagram to be used in business scheduling. Following these developments, the transition to mass production was made with the assembly lines developed by Henry Ford in the early years of the 20th century. This development further reduced the price of products in the market, accelerated production and enabled the products to be obtained by the wider community.

With mass production, the made of a product is 8-10 times faster, and even in some sectors 50-100 times faster and the labor effort spent on the product has decreased at the similar rate. In the beginning, this meant that the enterprises could produce more, thus adding wealth to their ownership. At the same time, entry barriers to sectors have fallen due to lower costs. Thus, small and medium enterprises were competing with large companies in the market. Together with this competition, a market environment has emerged in which not only production is sufficient, but at the same time it is necessary to sell what it produces. In the first years of mass production, it meant “More production = More sales” but this equation was broken with this competition.