My ERP Notes

1. ERP is not about software. It is about business processes.

2. A Business process is a sequence of activities that serve a particular Goal.

3. A business process begins with a customer’s need and ends in the fulfillment of that need.

4. The outcome of a typical business process is an increased effectiveness (value for the customer) and increased efficiency (less costs for the company).

5. Process are of two types: Primary processes- which are directly involved in the creation of the customer value and support process which are involved with the organization’s internal activities.

6. Characteristics of a business process:

a. Definability : It must have clearly defined boundaries, input and output.

b. Order : It must consist of activities that are ordered according to their position in time and space.

c. Customer : There must be a recipient of the process' outcome, a customer.

d. Value-adding : The transformation taking place within the process must add value to the recipient, either upstream or downstream.

e. Process Owner: The person responsible for the continuous improvement and performance of the process.

f. Resources: It uses resources. Unlike information resources get consumed. As an example, as customer orders are processed they are completed and signed off, and typically are used only once per unique resource (order).

g. Information: It uses information. Information, unlike resources, is not consumed in the process - rather it is used as part of the transformation process. In formation may come from external sources, from customers, from internal organizational units and may even be the product of other processes.

7. What is an ERP

 An enterprise-wide set of management tools that balances demand and supply, containing the ability to link customers and suppliers into a complete supply chain, employing proven business processes for decision making, and providing high degrees of cross-functional integration among sales, marketing, manufacturing, operations, logistics, purchasing, finance, new product development, and human resources, thereby enabling people to run their business with high levels of customer service and productivity, and simultaneously lower costs and inventories; and providing the foundation for effective e-commerce.

8. ERP evolved from MRP ( Material Requirement Planning) It uses the master schedule (What are we going to make?), the bill of material (What does it take to make it?), and inventory records (What do we have?) to determine future requirements (What do we have to get)?

9. It also makes use of Rough Cut Capacity Planning which converts the sales and operations plan into approximate material and capacity requirements twelve to eighteen months into the future.

10. Next Level was closed loop MRP which has tools to address both priority and capacity. It has feedbacks from execution function to planning function so that plans can be altered when necessary.

11. Next Level is MRP-II which has three additional functions: Sales and operational planning, Financial interface and Simulation ( What if analysis).

12. Next Level is ERP where it is more powerful than MRP II because it 1.Supplies single set of resource planning tools across the entire enterprise. 2) provides real-time integration of sales, operating, and financial data 3) connects resource planning approaches to the extended supply chain of customers and supplier.

13. ERP is different from other approaches to manufacturing such as lean manufacturing, six sigma that it concentrates on coordination of the individual elements of business processes.

14. ABC of ERP implementation:

A items are very costly and important – hence they demand most attention and careful planning. The B are less significant than A and C are the least significant items. In implementation C, is the computer: the hardware and the software. B is the data: inventory records, the bill of materials. Item A is the people If People part is implemented correctly, the people will understand objectives and how to get there.

15. The implementation Dilemma:

Work load: Installing enterprise software can be an enormous task. Even with lots of people from outside consulting firms, the time requirements for the company’s people are very large. If these guys are already doing a lot of work, they don’t have the mental energy required in implementing ERP.

16. Catch-22 of ERP Software:

a. It is a lot of work

b. It is a do-it-yourself project. Remember here implementers = users.

c. It is not Priority Number-1

d. It is people-intensive

e. It requires top management leadership and participation.

f. It involves virtually every department in the company

g. It requires people to do work differently.

17. An average ERP takes 18 months to implement.

18. In any project – there are three variables- the amount of work done, the amount of time available and amount of resources available to accomplish the work.

19. Ideal way to Implementation of an ERP

a. An analysis of the company’s current situation, problems, opportunities, strategies, etc.

b. A group of executives and operating managers from within the company must learn, in general terms, how Enterprise Resource Planning works; what it consists of; how it operates; and what is requiredto implement and use it properly.

c. Cost/Benefit analysis

d. Go/No-Go Decision

e. Vision Statement: A written document defining the desired operational environment to be achieved with the implementation of ERP.

f. Performance Goals: Agreement as to which performance categories are expected to improve and what specific levels they are expected to reach.

g. Selection of the full time project leader and other people who will work full time on the project.

h. Implementing Sales & Operations Planning.

i. Demand Management, Planning, and Scheduling Processes: Issues of mix—specific products, customers, orders, equipment—are handled in the area of demand management, planning, and scheduling.

j. Data Integrity

k. Finance and Accounting Processes

l. Software selection and software configuration installation

m. Audit-II: More focused approach.

n. Ongoing Education

A symmetry boggles over a snag.

New Paradigms in Education in Fashion Business

Need of Advanced Training Program for Students/Professionals in Fashion Industry

Textile and Apparel industry today is in a state of flux. With changes in the world sweeping across the domains of knowledge and redefining paradigms, mere functional knowledge of the various operations and processes will no longer suffice. To address these, there is a need for advanced training programs for students/professionals in fashion industry. This articles explores the broad forces which are shaping the global fashion industry and the ways a fashion professional- be it a fashion designer, stylist, merchandiser or a professional- can equip himself/herself by advanced training.

The state of economy will influence the success of a business. The pivotal concepts relating to a fashion professionals are tariffs and exchange rate of currency. A professional should know the various tariffs for textile, clothing and footwear and the change in these tariffs with some new government policy. Equally important is the exchange rate for the currency. A low value of currency benefits a professional for his business especially when many of his customers are from overseas. This effect can be seen in a country like India where appreciation in Rupee is witnessing the slowdown in garment and apparel exports.

The political climate of the world in a country can affect the success of a fashion business. With the development of regional trade blocs, the traditional sources of production, distribution and consumption are shifting. Currently price of goods is not the only criterion to source a merchandise from a particular country.  cost of supply chain has become more important to reach at a sourcing decision. With neighboring trade barriers vanishing, traditional garment exporters are finding it extremely difficult to remain cost competitive vis-à-vis the partners inside the trade blocs. However, it also throws an opportunity for the exporters to establish their own presence in that trade bloc. Equally important is the assistance given by the government to help the  business in a country. Government can give incentives, grants and impose tariffs on imported goods. It is imperative from a fashion professional to train himself to understand these nuances and use them for the advantage of his business.

It is said by Gerald M Hall, District Director, US Department of Labor that “The apparel industry is perhaps the hardest industry the US Department of Labor has ever Faced”. It is said that out of $100 dress made in US, only $6 goes to the worker who actually sewed the garment. This and other issues such as ergonomics, more meaningful systems of work, compliance with labor laws and elimination of illegal sweatshops are some of the social issues,  a fashion professional must be able to appreciate. Similarly for a fashion designer there are issues such as the connotation of color in a particular culture, how much to ‘undress’ the models and use of religious motifs are some of the factors that are determined by a particular society. A fashion professional  needs to train himself to address these issues.

Fashion Professionals must be aware of the technological developments if they are to succeed in the 21^st century. There have been many developments in fibers, yarns, fabrics and finishing techniques. Technology affecting the apparel industry includes computerized equipment and material transport systems. Wider looms, more computerized equipments and the increasing use of robotics to move material within the plant are other technologies recently designed to make a production house more efficient.

Equally astonishing is the integration of IT at each part of the apparel value chain. Designing solutions allow the design staff to create their own fabrics ( woven and knits), designs and prints. Thousands of digital snaps, capturing the essence of runway and street fashion in Paris, Milan or US can be modified to get the right color and silhouettes instantly. It is possible to even ‘virtualise’ how the merchandise will look at the retail store or when the customer wears it. It has made possible the online color matching and pickups which are so much needed for sample development. IT is helpful in pattern making, grading, cut planning, real-time shop-floor data collection, fabric and thread costing, labor cost estimation and production planning and control. IT savvy fashion professionals are the need of the hour.

Retail industry is changing dramatically. The emphasis has recently been shifted to quick response and lean retailing. It is a challenge for the apparel manufacturers to understand and adapt to the requirements of the retailers by providing value-added services. Increasingly retailers are focusing on the core business and are passing all other responsibilities on the clothing manufacturing business partners. These include design, product developments, sourcing, ready to sell packaging and logistics, shipping and distribution to buyer’s location. A professional needs to understand all these functions in order to service the retailers efficiently and effectively.

Intellectual Property, which have been in dormancy in 20^th century , has gained importance in this century. The reason for this (according to www.wipo.int) is that the national economies of the world are moving to knowledge intensive economies and the trade in knowledge intensive products has increased dramatically. There are many facets of IP which can be related to fashion industry. Design, the registration of which helps the owner to protect all others from exploiting its new or original ornamental or aesthetics aspects which may relate to a three dimensional feature, such as the shape of a hat or a two dimensional feature such as a textile print.

Then there are branding and trademark issues. Big fashion houses value their brand equity and fiercely protect their brand names through registration of trademark and protection of associated artwork by copyright laws. Similarly a portfolio of patents, such as new fabrics that do not crease or are softer, can help attract business partners or investors. Then there are trade secrets which may range from a list of key suppliers and/or buyers, to use of software tools for fashion design to logistics management of the entire value chain.  It is there fore imperative that a fashion professional should train himself for the various Intellectual Property Rights Laws.

To sum up, all the factors mentioned above require some advanced training and can not be learnt effectively on the job. The fashion professional will do well to  prepare themselves for these modern challenges by taking advanced training program in fashion and apparel management. 

What if you don't like NIFT MFM course

Dear Priyank,

I took admission in management dept. this year.I just wanted to know a little more about this course, because I am not at all liking this course. First of all a B school must not work in functional timings like 9 to 5 as NIFT management timinngs takes one back to High school.A B school should have a campus with hostel where students are staying like in IIM's, students are called at 11 0' clock night if there is any guest lecture coming.This sort of environment is needed for management education.

And most important about faculties,I am sorry to say that NIFTmanagement faculties require a lot of training I guess.And also some 5-6 faculties are teaching whole management stream..this I feel is insufficient.

I need a suggestion...do I write CAT again and try for MICA or any other top B school?

Dear,

 

Thanks for your candid ( and should I say somewhere true?) outburst. However there are a few things that need to be understood.

First of all the fashion management course in NIFT is not a business management course in true sense. It starts from understanding of the category ( most of it is apparel as it is an evolution from the earlier course - AMM - Apparel Marketing and Merchandising), goes through the quality aspects and deals with the logistics and selling aspects of fashion. Thus it prepares you for a specific stream of business. It deals with lots of 'soft' issues such as color- style- design- visual merchandising etc. which is unlike in any other business management course which concentrate on profit. Here "marketing" is redefined as "merchandising", product is redefined as "category", Technology is understood as "Garment Manufacturing Technology", selling as "retail management", Logistics as "supply chain management", Materials as "warehousing", computers as "ERP",production planning is called as "range planning" and so on. So you see a whole new vocabulary has developed around fashion management. Hence to compare a Fashion Managament course with a B-School course would be imperfect.

Faculty in NIFT should take cognizance of the dependence on product and process knowledge ( Fabrics, garments and Garment Manufacturing) for Fashion Management apart from the fact that apparel retail management is different from a regular retail management course. But I am sure they are doing their job pretty well. The only thing is that most of them are pretty new and not exposed to the vagaries of apparel industry.

About Placements I have written elsewhere in the blog.

If you dont like the course, that is one thing, you should go ahead and take your CAT. But if you have some passion about the business of fashion this is the right place you are in.

Careers in Journalism for Fashion Professionals

Fashion Professional, or for that matter any professional, is required to communicate extensively at various levels. The communication may be with clients who want to know the progress of their merchandise, it may be with the suppliers and producers of fabrics or it may even be with the boss, who want the reports succintly and effectively presented to him. Lot of professionals learn this art through experience. However, it would be brilliant if these skills can be had right at the onset of one's career. A course in journalism can help you in gaining those skills with ease and under guidance with able mentors.

Career in journalism in itself can be very rewarding. As a fashion professional you can work in fashion magazines like Vogue, Elle or work in fashion channels. If you want to leave the fashion industry altogether there are a lot of entertainment and media venues you can venture into. You can work with CNBC, if you have a liking for business or work with Balaji Telefilms if home entertainment is your forte. A survey said that the entertainment and media are the two hottest careers in the time to come.

An effort to this direction has been made by 9.9 School of Convergence by introducing a course in Diploma in Applied Journalism .The admissions are open with the session starting from September 20th.

The aim of this course is to inculcate in a person the high quality editing, writing and reporting skills. The classes are scheduled on Sundays so that the professionals dont have to leave their regular jobs. One can contact them and find more about the details.

As their website suggests, their placement services or "career services" do more than just getting a student a full time job. The career is shaped from the beginning of the course looking at a person's abilities and aspirations. The 9.9 School of Convergence has 100% placement with clients like NDTV, STAR, CNN-IBN to boast of . The leadership team has Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha, Dr. Eric D Saranovitz, Pooja Kothari and Gunjan Aggarwal who have links deep into the media industry.

It can be understood that with a specialisation and a career in journalism, the jobs will be much more enriching and satisfying ( and more lucrative) than with a specialisation alone.

Which NIFT center is the best, what are centralised placements

The have received the following questions from one of my readers:


1) if i ve the option of mumbai or bangalore centres, which one do u suggest?
2) what do u mean by centralized placements? and what is the role of centres in that?
3) i came to know that there is no hostel facility in mumbai centre. is it true?
4) which are the next 2 best centres after delhi, bangalore and bombay?
5) had there been no recession around would every one get placed this time?

Answers to Qustions 1, 2 and 4 are as follows:

Mint has released the latest rank of Fashion Institutes in India. According to that list NIFT Delhi is at No. 1, Chennai at 4, Hyderabad at 5, Mumbai at 6, Bangalore at 7, kolkata at 8 and Gandhinagar at 10th place. You can decide based on that ranking. You can read the full article here:

In the contex of NIFT, centralised placements mean the following:

1. Companies are given their choices to conduct placements in one of the centres.

2. Students have the choice to sit in a limited number of centres ( usually 4) and they have to exercise it before the placements start.

3. Thus all the students theoretically participate in all the placements.

4. If a student appears in an interview, and a company offers student a job, even if student doesnt agree, he/she cannot sit for any interview again.

5. The role of centres in that they provide the arrangement for conducting interviews, thats all.

Answer to Question 5 is YES.

Garment Industry Vs. IT Industry

Garment Industry Vs. IT industry

It is a buzzword to shape the merchandising department to the tune of IT industry. However there are certain fundamental differences between the two industries. It would be futile to camouflage the real nature of the garment industry by simulating appearances like culture of first name basis and providing cubicles to the merchandisers.Unlike the pure black and white logic in the IT industry, the garment industry is characterised by shades of gray and color. The problem becomes more complex when the merchandising department becomes IT enabled.

Today in order to look "hype", the garment industry is changing its appearance. There are working hour norms in place. There is a provision of working from home. One can see the emergence of email as the only medium and evidence of communication. "Punctuality" has acquired a new meaning.The point of doing all this is to give garment industry the appearance of that of an IT industry in order to make it attractive for the employees and to ride in the boat of "efficiency" and "speed" in the name of ITising the industry. The question is if this analogy is perfect or even similar.

For one, IT industry is based on a project based organisation where teams get built for a particular project, then are reorganised for someother project. The whole culture of the IT organisation is based on this approach. When there is a project that needs to be completed, then punctuality doesnt matter as long as one is doing the task that is assigned. There is no need for a business attire as the bosses are temporary. There the culture is on first name basis as the hierarchy is flat. One can work from home and one can get organised with one's emails as all those things remain till the project last. It seems and is clear that the demands of the project based organisation
shape the requirements that are listed in this paragraph.

Take a look at garment industry, primarily garment industry is characterised by multiple ongoing tasks with no project based requirements. The bosses are usually permanent, and have a significant stake in their long term employement. Thus all the tools and camouflaging imposed by HR department become a tool to ensure that goal. Mails are used to gain time as well as to safeguard their positions. Also mails sent at odd hours are used as a way to influence their bases. Then they need subordinate to locate and organise those mails. Thus mails become in their hands as a way to manipulate and consolidate their position. Sometimes, huge 'mail-mail' games are started in which an avalanche of e-mail is catapulted from both sides. This distorts the vary purpose for which emails are needed.

"First Name Basis" is a trap, that most people find it hard to resist. Of course, employees want to call people higher in the hierarchy on first name basis. The problem starts when people equate the first name basis as a means to assert their equality which doesnt go well with most of the bosses in the garment industry who, as said earlier are permanent in their positions and would like to safeguard their positions by building huge ego defences. Tensions also develop when an employee cannot call his or her boss on the first name basis because of their attitude, but he/she has to do so because "first name" is promoted by the organisation.

Working hour norms dont work here again because of peculiar nature of the garment industry. If a consignment has to go on time it has to go on time, in that case, one has to put more hours and more often than not consignments in a garment industry are almost always late because of so many factors beyond the control of the management. So one finds herself working late almost daily.

The most important difference between a garment and an IT industry is the role of logic in the whole operation. IT product has a lifecycle and it is operated and built upon by pure logic. In garment industry the product is image based product, since image is subjective, therefore the product depends on so many factors as season, color, taste. Even the raw material of the product i.e. fibres are so variable in nature that we can only do a statistical analysis on them. Also the suppliers are spread in different location and their interpretation of a particular is different. Thus the very base of garment and IT industry is different.

The situation becomes compounded when we try to ITise the garment industry. Thus an ERP package is introduced which can at best increase the existing camouflaging and confusion. Things go bad quickly and in huge quantities because of this. And in order to thrust IT logic onto garment industry create so ridiculuous situations that it often happens that the ERP package is done away with. If the management still has that euphoria of IT, they will go for a 'bigger' and 'better' ERP package which makes existing situation even worse.

The solution, understand the true nature of the industry, its peculiarities and its idiocyncracies and design your organisational policies keeping those points of view into consideration. Merely thrusting some industry's requirements onto some other industry will only complicate and aggravate the matters further.

Questions about MFM Course, NIFT

Here is a mail I got from one of my readers. The question is written in red, rest is my answer

Hi,I got a call from NIFT-MFM COURSE.i am very fascinated abt Fashion industry and very curious to go in this field,but my parents says MBA is better and will give me wider scope but i wanna go into glamour industry and wanted to do something different but at the same time i am concerned abt my growth,career prospects,job profile and salary.

Fashion industry is anything but glamor. It is about hardwork, sweat and should I say, tears.

Of course, in NIFT you will find every thing you can dream of. Glamour, friends, relatively slack work hours and of course, the valuable degree.

But out of NIFT and the world turns gray. The garments which looked so fascinating when looked from a window on mall, will become a matter of spec sheet specification, which you have to follow up with people depending on your role. It becomes a rat race, where you will be chasing people. You will be chasing quality personnel to first get your samples then chase them for the results. Or you could be chasing garment manufacturing people about your garments. You will be constantly on phone, mail or in a meeting. The stress will get on you as the deadline arrives, and it is unlike exams happening once in three months and then you will be waiting for results. In fact you will be evaluated daily.

If you like photo shoot, you will be chasing photographers, fashion stylists to get your garment shot.Then you will be chasing IT guys to get them uploaded. Then you chase transporters to put them in stores. Then you chase your sales personnel to sell them. Its a big mirage.

And data, yes you will be crunching a lot of it, you would be spending much more time with EXCEL then you do on your mobile phone and laptop together. You have to be a pro in advanced excel. If you are not they catch you and will put  all types of objections about your qualification.

It is glamor to others, those who are in it is all sweat and tears. Career prospects are specific, you would be dealing more with designs than cash flow in the inital part of your career. Can hope to get a package of 10 lakh within two years of passing out if you are a fresher.

Comparing NIFT and MBA is not valid, for the very fact that orientation of both the type of personnel is different. though they talk about the same language of money, Garments are image oriented products and therefore require lot of imagination rather than hard hitting thinking that normally MBA schools equip you with when they talk about functional or financial products. There are no black and white areas in fashion industry, figuratively.

Number System-2

0- insignificant digit
others 1,2,3,4,5, ... significant digits

Numeral : Group of figures, representing a number is called a numeral

Natural Nos: N = {1,2,3...]
Whole Nos: N = {0,1,2,3...]
Integers: N \ { -3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3, ]

Rational No= When the nos are written in fractions 1/2, 3/4, 8/9 (Where a and b are integers and b is not = 0, eg a/b)

Irrational Nos: When a number cannot be written as a/b eg. sqrt (3) or sqrt(2)

Real No= Rational + Irrational
Comosite No= A number other than 1 which is not prime is a composite number
Even No.
Odd No.
Consecutive Nos= 6,7,8
Prime Numbers= other than 1 is prime if it is divisible by 1 and itself only

Prime numbers upto 100 are (2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31,37,41,43,53,59,61,67,71,73,79,83,89,97)

Number System

Rules of Divisibility


Divisibility by 2- Last Digit must be even or 0
Divisibility by 3- Sum of Digits - must be divisible by 3
Divisibility by 4- Last 2 digits divisible by 4 or two or more zeros at the end
Divisibility by 5- Last Digit should be either 0 or 5
Divisiiblity by 6- The number should be divisible by 3 AND 2

(divisibility by mxn--> then number should be divisible by m and n)

Divisibility by 7--> Remember the number (-2). Thus to check divisibility of 112 by 7, take the last digit , 2, multiply by (-2), subtract this number(-4) from the number left which is 11-4=7.

Thus the number is divisible by 7

or 112--> 11-2x2 = 7 div by 7
296--> 29-6x2=21 div by 7

Divisibilty by 8--> Last 3 digits divisible by 8 or three or more zeros at the end.

Divisibility by 9--> Sum of digits divisible by 9

Divisibility by 10--> 0 at the end

Divisibility by 11--> Sum of digits at even and odd place are equal or differ by a number divisible by 11.

eg
3245682

Sum of digits at even place: 2+5+8=15
Sum of digits at odd place: 3+4+6+2=15

Their difference= 15-15=0, thus the number is divisible by 11

Divisibility by 12--> Number should be divisible by both 4 and 3
Divisibility by 13--> Remember a number +4, proceeding as in case of 7
Thus
143---> 14+3x4=26 ( div by 13)

Divisibility by 14--> Number should be divisible by both 2 and 7

Divisibility by 16--> Last 4 Digits divisible by 16

divisibility by 17--> Remember a number (-5) , proceed as in 7 and 13

1904= 190-4x5=170 (div by 17)

Divisibility by 18--> 9 and 2

Divisibility by 19--> Remember a number +2

342 = 34+2x2 = 38 (div by 19)