ANALYSIS OF THE PRODUCTION-TRAINING DEPARTMENT OF BLIND PEOPLES ASSOCIATION, AHMEDABAD

Report submitted toProf. N. RavichandranAndHemangini Soni(Academic Associate)In partial fulfilment of the requirements of the courseOperations Management-IOn11h December 2014ByGroup-4, Section-DDeori Adarsh KumarG. Sameera Sree DeeptiSom Sekhar ThatoiRahil SheikhDivekar Ganesh Bandu

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AHMEDABAD

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. OVERVIEWBlind Peoples Association (BPA) is a professional organization, which serves to all categories of people with disabilities. It serves its people by providing them with education, employment opportunities, equal rights and a quality of life. The organisational philosophy is that only by providing employment can these people be given a meaningful status in the society. Acceptance of disabled persons at work can be viewed as society's acceptance of these Persons without discrimination [1]. In line with its mission, BPA has an employment and placement service department which not only provides a window to job opportunities but the organisation also consistently works towards providing self employment opportunites to its people. In the past five years, it has provided employment to around 1500 people in the public as well as in the private sectors. Some of the organizations include banks, railways, hospitals and restaurants and work profiles include telephone operators, computer programmers, mobile repairers, liftman, etc. To support self-employment BPA also provides Micro-Credit to its individuals. Around 900 individuals are currently earning a regular livelihood from its self-employment programs. They have their own telephone booths, food stalls, beauty parlors, mobile repairing shops, etc. BPA also runs a project called the "Swayamsiddha Pariyojana" project where mainly blind women are empowered by giving them Micro Credit so that they can be independent individuals.

2. ORGANIZATIONBPA was founded in 1954, when a group of people got together to start a recreation club for the blind. Now the organization is a large multi-faceted agency providing many services. BPA today is one of the largest organizations in Asia working with and for all categories of disabilities. BPA has a functional organizational structure. [Exhibit 1] The main functions of the organizations are Fundraising and Publications, Training, Education and Braille Press. A director heads each function with several managers under him. The organization performs several activities and has around 8 departments running under it. [Exhibit 2].

3. PROJECT PROPOSALThis study curtails to an in-depth analysis of two sub-departments under the production and training department. The departments are the tailoring unit and the handicrafts division. The tailoring unit currently employs the deaf-dumb whereas the handicrafts division employs partially and fully blind employees.

TAILORING UNITTailoring unit BPA consists of sixteen workers, one supervisor and one helper. Some of them (around 12-13) are deaf and dumb. Most of the workers have one year of work experience, while a few workers are working in this unit since it started three years ago. There are 20 sewing machines in this unit out of which 14-15 machines are utilized in a day. Floor plan of Tailoring unit is shown in Exhibit 1A.The main output of the unit is custom ordered clothes, which consists of uniforms, salwar kameez, shirts etc. Apart from this the unit also produces 4 other types of products: Files, Jhola Bags, Ladies Hand Bags and Cloth bound Notepads. It is difficult to forecast demand for these products as it is seasonal and varies. Though the unit has some organisational buyers who place order on a more or less regular basis. Hence this unit follows JIT(Just in time) method for delivery. Usually only one product is produced at a time. But there are occasions when two or more orders are received with high priority in which workforce is divided to produce more than one product. Certain experienced tailors are more skilled and thus take up more complex work e.g tailoring of shirts etc whereas the others can be cross utilised. The workers are divided into workstations accroding to the demand and thus each kind of product requires reorganization of the workers. For example, for making a hand bag 4 workers produce the accessories like the handles and 4 others work on the body and later at the end, these are stiched together. The process flow diagram for two different products in shown in Exhibit 4 and 5.Different products require different skills. Only 3-4 special workers can make files and notepad. Jhola bags and normal bags are the main products and everyone is trained to produce them. Production of clothes is also specialised where the main work is done by a few experienced tailors and the finishing and cutting can be done by the rest of them.Employees start working at 10:00 am and leaves at 4:00 pm. Official timing for lunch is 2:00 pm to 2:30 pm but it generally extends up to 3:00 pm. Employees take frequent leaves, hence average number of workers per day is 14. Also, demand for products is very low and people work leisurely at their own speed. Though BPA is not profit driven, for many employees this is the only source of income. Employees are paid based on experience. Junior employees get salary of Rs 1,000 per month while senior employees get salary of around 1,200 per month. Employees who are not physically disabled are penalized for taking unofficial leaves.Numerical Analysis:Exhibit 2 shows capacity of products and current production for them. It can be seen that for most of the products capacity is underutilized. This unused capacity can be utilized to make school uniforms for children in BPA. Currently BPA School of blind people (Around 200 students) purchases uniform from outside vendors using donation money. Key Issues:1. The demand is variable as well as less.2. The unit is not profitable enough to buy its own material. Most material inputs comes from BPA donations.3. The variation in demand leads to frequent reorganisation of the process flow, which in turn affects its efficiency.Demand Improvement: The demand can be increased by undertaking the production of school uniforms for children studying at BPA. Currently uniforms are bought from outside. Tie ups with online stores can be forged to expose more people to the goods. At such low costs, their demand can be expected to be significant. Also, this can give them the chance to earn a premium on the goods. Other ways to improve the demand isnt in the scope of this project.Efficiency Improvement:

Exhibit 1A Floor plan

Machine 1

Machine 2

Machine 4

Machine 3

Machine 5

Machine 6

Machine 8

Machine 9

Machine 10

Machine 11

Machine 12

Machine 13

Machine 7

Machine 14

Supervisor HelperMachine 15

Machine 16

Assembly line

Exhibit 2 Tailoring unit products

ProductPriceOrder batch sizeActual capacityIdeal capacityWorkforce available

Clothes20020-300.519

Files10050 - 100252

Jhola bag10100102016

Ladies Hand Bags10010042016

Notepad25100- 300151003

* Varies with variety and order sizeExhibit 3 Profit calculations

ProductPriceDemand per monthRevenue

Clothes200306,000

Files100505,000

Jhola bag105005,000

Normal bag50502,500

Notepad253007,500

Total26,000

Income Statement per month

Revenue26,000

Wages20,4001

Electricity3,000

Material2,0002

Depreciation8003

Net Income-200

1 14 junior workers at Rs 1000, 2 senior workers at 1,200, supervisor and helper at 2,0002 Most of the material is donated, hence material cost is low. 3 There are 16 machines with average cost Rs 3,000. Assuming 5 years useful life, depreciation per month will be 16 * 3000 / 60 = 800

Extra contribution by selling uniforms (per month) = Students * Uniform Contribution / 12 = 200 * 300 / 12 = 5,000Efficiency calculations using actual capacityAssuming 5 hour per day per worker and 20 days in monthTotal hours available = 16 * 5 * 20 = 1,600Current demand Per monthActual capacity per dayHours required per unitTotal hours

30 1 10.00 300.00

50 2 2.50 125.00

500 10 0.50 250.00

50 4 1.25 62.50

300 15 0.33 100.00

Total 837.50

Actual efficiency = 837.5 / 1600 = 52.34%Efficiency calculations using ideal capacityCurrent demandIdeal capacityIdeal hours required per unitTotal hours

30 1 5.00 150.00

50 5 1.00 50.00

500 20 0.25 125.00

50 20 0.25 12.50

300 100 0.05 15.00

Total 352.50

Actual efficiency = 352.5 / 1600 = 22.03%

Handicrafts UnitThe handicrafts unit of BPA employs blind/partially blind women who produce varied kinds of handicrafts. The unit has a workforce of 19 women, out of which 17 are regular workers, a secretary and a president. The organizational struture can be seen in Exhibit 5. The work floor is organized into 5 workstations where similar kind of work is performed by all the workers. The floor plan can be seen in Exhibit 5A.The products made here vary from time to time and are mostly dependent on the festivals in that particular season or demands they receive. The products made include chocolates, rakhis, friendship bands, Diwali diyas or dandiya sticks. Their duties also include preparing breakfast for the entire community working in the association.Production is mostly pull-driven, and the choice of products to be manufactured rests solely on the supervisor. The supervisor is assisted by a normal person. Apart from the supervisor, the workforce consists of 17 other people. There are 4 worktables in the room, and each table is assigned to 4-5 people. Most of them are completely blind, while there are 3 workers who are partially visual- impaired. Some of the activities, like pouring hot wax in Diwali diyas may prove to be hazardous, hence they are taken care solely by the partially blind people. The demand for the products is low, and hence importance is not given to cycle time or capacity in particular. Capital for raw materials is usually obtained from the revenues they earn or the donations received by the visitors who visit occasionally. Due to the law demand, another department involved in manufacturing blankets had to be shut down as they were not able to get enough money to buy the special kind of raw material required for making blankets. The future of other departments also looks bleak, keeping in mind the dwindling demand and reduced capital inflows. In a shift of 4 hours, a blind worker is able to produce 100 wicks, a considerably low quantity. There is scope for improvement of capacity, especially for single workstation processes like making wicks and friendship bands. In production lines involving more workstations, the lower number of partially blind people can prove to be a bottleneck as a few activities are completely reliant on them. Workers are employed not with the motive of earning profits but to keep them involved and receive whatever remuneration they are able to earn. The people working in this section are fairly educated, with most of them matriculates, and a few having senior secondary and graduate education also. With such a workforce, it is also possible to get demands for a few activities, which involve a higher amount of mental application, which will be valued higher than the current skill. The range of products manufactured can also be extended, and more orders can be sought once the capacity constraints are taken care of.

Exhibit 5A:

Machine 1

Machine 2

Machine 4

Machine 3

Machine 5

Machine 6

Machine 8

Machine 9

Machine 10

Machine 11

Machine 12

Machine 13

Machine 7

Machine 14

Supervisor HelperMachine 15

Machine 16

Assembly line

Exhibit 1: BPA: Production Training Unit

Exhibit 2. BPA ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Exhibit 3. BPA Departments

Exhibit 4: Tailoring unit organizational Sturcture

Exhibit 4. Tailoring unit: Process Flow Diagram for HandbagsHandles and Accessories

Work station 2Work station1

Inventory

Stitching togetherMaterials

Work station 4Work station 3

Finished ProductSupervisor(Order Processing)

Main Body

Order Placed

Exhibit 5. Tailoring unit: Process Flow Diagram for bulk order clothesWork station (Stitching)2

Inventory

Work station(Embroidery, Finishing)Inventory

Work station1 (Cuting)Finished Product

Finished ProductInventory

Work station1Inventory

Work station 3Work station 4Materials

Finished ProductInventory

Work station1Inventory

Work station 3Work station 4

Supervisor(Order Processing)

Order Placed

Exhibit 6 Handicraft Organizational structure

Exhibit 5: Tailoring Unit

1. REFERENCES[1]: http://www.bpaindia.org/aboutus.php Blind Peoples Association Website