Fewer equipment changeovers for the embroidery process at Oxford Industries

Oxford Industries, Inc., a leading US apparel manufacturer, implemented a scheduling algorithm that significantly reduced equipment changeovers in its in–house embroidery facility. The company was experiencing difficulties meeting due dates in one of its more profitable, new markets—branded custom–embroidered golfwear. The time Oxford was spending on equipment changeovers was leaving insufficient processing time to meet a surge in demand in this new market. We identified an opportunity for increased production capacity through more efficient scheduling of sequence–dependent changeovers among garments. During the period that we studied, the use of the scheduling algorithm reduced the number of changeovers by an average of 88 percent per order.