Major operations of the ready-made garment industry fall under these three categories:

1. Pre-production
2. Production
3. Post-production

Pre-production: This phase involves arranging materials, line planning, sample development and approval, sourcing, and production scheduling.

Production: During production, fabrics are spread, cut, bundled, and sewn.

Post-production: Post-production includes inspection, pressing, folding, and packing, making the garment ready to sell.

The labour dependent nature of cutting and sewing makes the readymade garment expensive. Fabric costs and cut-and-sew costs are two of the largest expenses in garment manufacturing. While raw materials contribute up to 50 to 60% of the total product cost, sewing contributes approximately 35% of the total cost.

Efforts have been made to lower labour costs through supply chain management by locating production facilities in developing countries like India, Bangladesh, etc. However, this strategy is becoming complex and difficult to sustain, forcing the industry to find alternative solutions. Thus, automating ready-made garment manufacturing processes are becoming the need of the hour!

Automation not only improves productivity, but also the quality of the finished product by minimising human intervention and preventing errors. Some of the automated techniques adopted by the industry includes:

1. Mechanised fabric handling
2. Computerised cutting
3. Automatic sewing
4. Use of robots