Garments Mechanic app
LTLABS
Background
LTLabs is a startup company, specializing in software development for the garments manufacturing industry. LTLabs was founded as part of the parent company LuenThai, a big garment manufacturer in South East Asia with over 30 factories in 8 countries.
They combine their first hand knowledge of the fashion industry with modern technology to streamline the supply chain and optimize transparency and efficiency.
2020
Problem
As part of the garment software suite, I was involved in the design and development of a module to support the mechanics of the sewing machines. As most factories possess many sewing machines, they employ a team of dedicated mechanics that are in charge of maintenance and fixing of issues that arise. Mechanics are often also involved in preparing a sewing line for a new product – putting the right machines at the right spots and ensuring the machines are set up correctly with the right stitch types, size, speed etc.
Process
The application to support this workflow in the garments factory consists of multiple parts – the mechanics themselves use a mobile application to receive requests from the Line Manager if a sewing machine breaks down and provide him with a daily schedule of the maintenance work ahead. There is also a backend system on the web, that allows the maintenance manager to schedule the right machines to the right technicians and keep track of the status of the production floor.
Design
A highlight of this project was to design an overview of the production floor and show the status of all machines that require maintenance or need an urgent fix. I made a prototype of the design that we tested on the production floor – this led to a decrease of the response time for the technicians to problems on the production floor, which has an impact on the total ‘downtime’ of a production line, one of the most important KPIs for the garments factory.