Bangladesh is still lagging behind its competitors in terms of labor-intensive productivity in the ready-made garment industry. While the hourly productivity of Bangladesh is $3.40, the productivity of China, the number one exporter, is recorded at $11.10.
Despite being the second-largest apparel exporter, behind only Cambodia, Bangladesh still lags behind seven Asian competitors in hourly labor productivity.
The owners and employees of every successful factory in our country are now making all kinds of efforts to achieve success in just one thing. But I don’t agree with the main point. We have appointed the largest number of CEOs, EDs, IE GMs, and Managers from the country where the top officials of that country are holding big positions in the factories, but the productivity is not so good to see! Is it our overall failure to establish the entire industrial ecosystem of our country?
However, government agencies claim that the country’s overall labor productivity rose by 3.80 percent between 1995 and 2016, and citing data from the Asian Productivity Organization (APO), the industry ministry said that 20 Asian countries saw a 2.5 percent increase in productivity during this period.
I am trying to explain some of the reasons why the efficiency of the working people of our country is so low and the efficiency of our industry is so questionable.
1. There was a kind of frustration among the working people for the relatively low salary. But what is worse is that the wrong messages, provocative messages of our newspapers, social media, or labor organizations have only helped these working people to create regret. But none of us could do the job of channeling their perceptions in the right way.
How this industry has provided them with this income by relieving them from the pain of unemployment. How this minimum wage has made them self-reliant and brought them to today’s position, where would the misery of the country and the nation have gone if we did not have today’s 47 billion exports? Our media, BGMEA, BKMEA, government agencies, or our internal HR team, production team, and top management team have failed miserably to communicate this message positively.
2. We basically work on a relatively cheap product, so you get a cheap wage with high work pressure, and you get a relatively low salary. If you do the job well and can handle more critical orders, the salary will naturally increase. Every person and organization we are responsible for has failed to deliver such a clear message. This responsibility falls on every official who receives bread and butter from the industry. You are responsible for the closure of 300 factories in the last few months!
Our wage board, government, employers’ organization, various NGOs, labor organizations, and every organization is making some improvements every time to provide uniformity in wages. It is an ongoing process and analyses are made in line with development and productivity. Instead of opposing the salary increase, we are trying to raise awareness so that we do not increase the wrong message.
3. Those of us who like to share negative news, and news of labor exploitation on social media with great emotion and enthusiasm are a kind of misleading irritants. We never look at our inefficiency. There is a kind of confusion that we have taken a huge payment by sharing the news. If this industry was not there, the 8 lakh educated unemployed would have been reduced to 80 lakh in today’s Bangladesh. Without this, our economy would not have been able to grow. There is no such thing as luck in any of the things we do today. The news of unemployment in old Bangladesh from 1980 to 1990 can still be seen in the archive.
4. All kinds of supply chain inefficiencies of those of us who work at the office level basically keep our production system under constant stress and strain, forcing us to unnecessarily pay extra overtime. A shipment deal is never for production, it’s for not starting production on time. I think these incidents are responsible for 80% of today’s inefficiency in the industry. But we are making a big mistake by foolishly putting the responsibility on production.
5. Overall, no proper steps have been taken in our industry regarding this issue of total business inefficiency. Government, non-government organizations, various NGOs, and aid agencies have completed the projects cursorily. Our organizations weren’t also looking towards the completion of the project in a responsible manner. Both parties have done nothing to deserve this.
While signing these projects, we do not notice that some foreign-identified companies are taking money abroad from these projects by doing business for crores of money and failing to bring any kind of change in the industry. And we are handing over the internal sensitive information of the industry to them. It’s time for us to be careful before working with these reputed companies.
6. Some local and international media, newspapers, and influential personalities are constantly indulging in malice against our industry. The people of these organizations published some interviews with the people of our industry, and our leaders immediately started behaving blindly.
We have shown the failure of all government and non-government organizations to play a strong role in this regard. The BGMEA’s last committee, however, once made a very official protest about an issue. Recently, however, some people were a little hesitant about returning Walmart’s goods. Apart from that, I didn’t see anything else.
7. The training or efforts to increase the internal efficiency of our organization were only to create operators and continue the operation. To increase the efficiency of production, no work is basically done to increase personal efficiency. In this regard, each factory will have to start work on a separate project. At the end of the day, none of the media, government, non-government organizations, or buyer representatives come forward for our needs. The extent to which you have brought this industry to individual initiative is the form of success of this industry today.
8. We don’t understand the importance of investing in automation. Using RFID in the sewing line does not mean automating the factory. One thing you have to admit is that this time there is no other way open to us except automation.
Automation, semi-automation, or soft automation is possible in every process in our industry. By each process, I mean all kinds of possible automation of about 250 processes. We have made a lot of mistakes in this regard. There should be no more time to lose.
9. In many factories of our country, the number one in productivity country’s famous and expensive CEO, ED, IE GM, and Managers are appointed. Can you please have a review session with all those heavyweight officers of yours as to why we are not able to do that in our country, and why they are not able to establish that kind of culture in this factory? It seems to me that an entrepreneur with such hopes hires foreign officials with so much money.
10. Out of about 100 effective tools of the Lean method, at least 25 tools should be involved in all the processes of any production-oriented organization. Because we stay away from the tested methods, the overall efficiency eco-system does not develop properly. It is important to understand which tools should be implemented on a priority basis according to the business type and needs of your organization.
It is a little difficult to choose such tools, implement them, and penetrate the culture in everyone. So, very constructive steps have to be taken concerning all these processes. Don’t stress that your organization can’t because no one else can.
It has become imperative for all of us to come forward in our efforts to make our core export-oriented industry sustainable and strong. It will not be resolved through a dialogue. Every factory has to work individually to improve its efficiency. You’ve been doing this for 40 years.
Let’s save the industry, if the industry survives, the country will survive.
