Wacoal America’s growing market share is due to both increasing US demand and international expansion throughout the Americas and Europe/Australia. As a result, Wacoal looked to their Dominican Republic manufacturing site to increase production. The challenge was to produce more without increasing costs.
Wacoal’s path to cutting room optimization
Lectra has helped Wacoal implement change by providing expertise on how to optimize material use and improve flow, as well as operator training. This enabled process streamlining and increased productivity as a result. They also implemented Vector Lingerie ix6 that cuts with a zero buffer and provides metrics to monitor performance.
Cutting room management expertise and solution that increased productivity by 20%
On Lectra’s advice, Wacoal increased cost savings and productivity by refining their process. These improvements were possible by taking a lean approach to the cutting room as well as upgrading to a Vector Lingerie cutting machine. According to Virgilio Estévez, the site’s plant manager, this project resulted “in substantial improvement in quality, cleaner processes and technologies that allow the cut of different types of materials and shapes, as well as an increase in productivity of 20%.”.
