Excel vs ERP for garment manufacturing: where spreadsheets stop coping

Most garment units run on a handful of files: the merchandiser's order sheet, a planning workbook with one tab per style, the fabric register, the hourly production sheet and the wage sheet built from bundle cards. They work, mostly because the people who keep them know where everything is.

Excel is not the problem. It is flexible, everyone in the office can use it, and it costs nothing extra. The real question is at what point the factory's work goes past what separate files can reliably hold.

Where Excel works well in a garment unit

• Costing a new style for a quotation, where one person builds the sheet and nobody else edits it.
• Comparing fabric consumption estimates before an order is confirmed.
• One-off analysis: a defect Pareto from end-line checking, a line efficiency comparison, a check on job worker rates.
• A small unit with one or two lines, a few buyers and an owner who is on the floor all day.

Where do spreadsheets become difficult?

One sheet per style

Each style has its own planning sheet, and the factory plan is the sum of them, reconciled by hand before the planning meeting. VSTAN Industries, a three-line garment manufacturer in Arani, planned this way. Allocating orders to lines and sizes took hours, and the plan was out of date as soon as a style changed. After moving to style-wise work orders on one screen in FleekERP, its planning time came down by about 60 percent.

Fabric consumption found at month end

The cut plan is worked out by hand, and what the cutting table actually used reaches the fabric register later, if at all. Over-consumption shows at stock reconciliation, after the order has shipped and the margin has gone.

Hourly counts that arrive after the shift

The hourly board on the line is filled in, photographed and typed up later. The office sees the day's total, not the hour when the line slipped.

Bundle cards and piece-rate wages

Operator output is written on bundle cards, tallied at shift end and reconciled for wages days later. Every step is a chance for a dispute. King Garments in Sivaganga worked this way until operators began logging completed bundles per operation on their phones. Wages are now calculated from those entries, and the disputes have ended.

Job work in a challan book

Panels sent for embroidery and garments sent for washing are written in one book, and returns in another. Matching them by style, colour and size is slow, so a short return is usually found when packing comes up short.

Defects and alterations

End-line checkers keep a tally of defects and pieces sent back for alteration, often on paper. Which line, which operation and which operator caused them is lost, so the same fault comes back on the next style.

Reports built by hand

Line efficiency, fabric used per style, labour cost per order and on-time shipment each need data from several files. They are built monthly and are already old when someone reads them.

Spreadsheets and ERP compared, task by task

An ERP is an operational system, not a bigger spreadsheet

The difference is when the record is made, and by whom. A spreadsheet is filled in after the work by someone in the office. A manufacturing ERP with floor recording is filled in by the people doing the work: stores issues rolls to the cut, the operator logs a bundle at the machine, the checker records a defect at the end of the line. The plan, the fabric position and the wage sheet are all read from those entries.

That is why an ERP that covers only purchase, stock and billing often changes little in a garment unit. The files that cause the trouble are the floor files, and they stay.

When should a garment manufacturer move from Excel to ERP?

There is no line count at which a unit must give up spreadsheets. The useful test is how often the files fail to give a current answer. These are the signs factories most often describe.

• Several people keep their own version. The merchandiser, planner and production head each have a copy of the order position, and they do not agree.
• More than one line runs at a time. Three lines on three styles is more than one planning sheet can follow through the day.
• Styles and ratios change often. New styles and revised POs mean the planning sheets are rebuilt every week.
• Fabric is hard to account for. Rolls the register shows are not in the store, or consumption per style is not known until month end.
• Line counts arrive late. The production head learns at the morning meeting that a line was behind yesterday.
• Checking records are on paper. Defects and alterations are counted, but not linked to the line, operation or bundle.
• Shade lots get mixed. Shading is found at finishing or by the buyer because rolls were not kept apart at cutting.
• Rework cannot be seen. Nobody can say how many pieces went back for alteration last week, or from which line.
• Buyers ask for more. A new buyer wants daily production status or tighter ship dates than the files can support.
• Nobody knows current WIP. Finding how many pieces sit at each line, at the embroidery unit and in finishing means walking the floor.

None of these means Excel has failed. They mean the unit now runs more styles and lines than separate workbooks can keep current. When two or three show up together, the workbooks are usually eating more hours than a system would. The guide to implementing ERP in a garment factory covers what the move involves.

Keeping what works

Excel stays for costing, analysis and buyer reports built from exports. What moves into the system is the operational record: orders, fabric and trims, bundles, counts, checks, job work and packing. In FleekERP that record sits on the work order, with inventory and traceability for rolls and trims and production control for the lines, while the books stay in Tally or Zoho.

For how the full flow runs in a garment unit, see FleekERP for garment and textile factories.