Letter of Acknowledgement

North South University

31 July 2016

Dear Madam,

Thank you for giving us such an interesting project. We all are highly involved to this project
and thorough this project we were able to know how to prepare process blueprint and layout.
This project also helped us to develop our skill in creativity as well.

Furthermore it was really exciting to work with Apex Footwear Limited. This project not only
improves our knowledge but also it helped us to improve our innovativeness. It was only
possible because of your skillful guidance, enlightened views, unfailing patience and valuable
suggestions for the accomplishment of our present study.

Sincerely,

Adiba Amath ID: 123 0338 630

Arzumand Rahman Sabik ID: 123 0184 630

Nusrat Jahan ID: 122 0436 030

Farzana Ahmed Mim ID: 132 1176 030

Taseen Bin Alam ID: 131 1191 030

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 Executive Summary

We have done our project of production management on a manufacturing company. We worked

on Apex Footwear Limited which is one of the leading manufacturers and exporters of leather
footwear in Bangladesh. We chose this company as the nature of the footwear production
process gives ample scope for variety in its company and division of labor. After visiting AFLs
factory in Gazipur we learnt that AFL consists of various production line thus we have focused
on only the production process of formal shoes. It is a process layout of batch production.

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Table of Contents

Contents Pages
Introduction 4
Company overview 4-5
Products Category 6-7
Process Design 8-9
Justification of Batch 10
Process layout 11-12
Justification of Process Layout 13
Matching Process with Layout 14
Conclusion 15
References 16

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Introduction:

Apex Footwear Limited (AFL) is the leading manufacturer and exporter of leather footwear from
Bangladesh to major shoe retailers in Western Europe, North America and Japan. Apex started
their business operations in 1990. In 1993 ALF was listed on Dhaka Stock Exchange. In May 06,
2006 AFL got into a strategic alliance with an Italian company and on December 27 they
changed their name to Apex Adelchi Footwear Limited. However, on December 15, 2013 they
changed their name back to Apex Footwear Limited. With over 191 own retail outlets and 380
authorized resellers, Apex ensures nationwide coverage of its diverse range of footwear for its
consumers.

Company Overview:
The company earned revenues of USD 145 million in 2015. AFL pioneered the export of value
added finished products export in the leather sector of Bangladesh and is also involved in the
local footwear retail business with the second largest shoe retail network in the country. Public
listed and traded since 1993, AFL is professionally managed, currently employs over 9,000
persons and is in full compliance with Corporate Governance Compliance Report under Section
2CC of the Securities Exchange Commission Notification Order.

While AFL has predominantly earned both critical and commercial fame through export of high
quality leather footwear in the international arena, Apex has sought to adeptly make use of that
expertise to provide high quality, fashionable footwear to the Bangladeshi consumers. Through
its nine in-house brands, namely Venturini, Apex, Sprint, Maverick, Moochie, Nino Rossi,
Sandra Rosa, Twinkler and SchoolSmart and one international brand i.e. Dr. Mauch - Apex
carries a huge selection of shoes, sandals and non-footwear items, ensuring that each of their
valued customer finds the product that is just right for them.

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Mission:

To ensure sustainable growth

To be a vendor of choice for our customers
To create value for our shareholders
To be a responsible corporate citizen

Vision: Honest Growth

Location:

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Products Category:

MEN:
Casual shoes
Formal shoes
Sandals
Boots
Sneakers

WOMEN:

Boots
Long boots
Sandals
Heels

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CHILDREN:

Party shoes
Sandals
School shoes

OTHERS:

Socks
Shoe care products
Ladies bags and purse
School bags

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Our Product:
As our project requires us to focus on one product and give proper justification of the process
and layout, we have decided to work with Mens formal shoes. We are focusing on the
manufacturing sector of the business. There are several types of formal shoes produced in the
factory using different quality leathers. Some are exported abroad and others are sold in several
outlets throughout Bangladesh.

Process Design:
Apex Footwear Limited is one of the leading footwear brands of Bangladesh and they have a
wide array of shoes, bags, foot accessories etc. Each of their designs is produced in bulk, in
segmented batches. For example, they have ten different types of formal shoes and each of them
is produced in bulk amount, in different batches. As we are focusing only on Mens formal
shoes, we can conclude that Apex Footwear is following Batch as their process design.

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9
Justification of Batch
Batch processing is used when a moderate volume of goods and services is desired and it can
handle a moderate variety in products and services (Stevenson). Equipment is generalized and
the workers do not need to be as highly skilled here as job shop. As we are working on formal
shoes in Apex, of a specific design we can be assured that our process is batch production.

1) Formal shoes of specific designs are made based on a moderate volume of order.

2) Skills of the factory workers are moderate as for general activities of shoe making general
equipments are used for example the main structure of formal shoes are structured in the
machine, whereas the finishing is done by the moderately skilled workers maintain the
sample design.

3) Despite making shoes in bulk, both fixed and variable cost of production is moderate
because procedure is not as repetitive and shoes are made in different batches.

4) Making a batch of formal shoes is a lengthy process, as there is customization of features

after the general structure is given to each shoe. The schedule is moderate complex and
processing of different stages of semi-finished shoes take time. As a result work-in-
process inventory is high.

5) There are possibilities of minor flexibility in shoe designs among every batches of
production, keeping the main structure of formal shoes procedure constant

6) Time schedule of every workstation is moderately complex as order per batch of formal
shoes varies. Hence production time taken cannot be measured accurately every batch.

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Process layout:
Process layouts are designed to process items or provide items or provide services that involve
variety of processing services (Stevenson).
Apex uses batch process to produce its goods so their process layout is described below:
Firstly, Apex gets their basic raw materials from the local tanneries and imports other
components from abroad like Italy, Pakistan etc. then the materials and others get stored in their
Raw Materials department. From the Raw Materials department, it goes to their Engineering
workshop where they process the materials to make them useable to make goods.
Secondly, the process takes place in their Leather Chemical Warehouse, in this department the
leathers are processed with necessary chemicals to make them usable, after the leather gets to the
finishing point and finally gets ready to be used. After doing the processing of leather, Apex
sends them to the Cutting and Sewing Department where the leather gets cut and shaped as per
their product demands. Apex faces the most bottlenecks in this department because they work by
focusing of the scrap rate as they dont get more than 10 percent. From the Sewing and Cutting
Department they move to Gluing Department where gluing to most of the leather is done. Apex
has a central warehouse where they store the properly cut and glued leathers.
Thirdly, their major part of the processing happens in their Production Development section.
Maximum of their staffs are related in this section, they have a sub department which is named
Component Department (outsole & insole) and operated by lean production. Next the process
follows to Quality Control check department where the staffs check the quality of the goods if
they meet their requirements or not. From Quality Control check it goes to the Wrapping and
Packaging department where their process almost ends and gets ready to be delivered to their
valued customers.

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12
Justification of Process Layout:
AFL formal shoes are made on batch production an order basis. Before taking order or
making semi-standardized shoes AFL do market research or survey by their sales person
to get to know the current trend of the market. Based on this they design their product
which requires moderate variety in process. As moderate variety in process is required in
AFL, programing and routing become moderately difficult and usages of equipment are
comparatively low.
The use of general equipment provides the necessary moderate flexibility to handle a
wide range of different categories shoes. Semi-skilled workers mainly make the semi-
standardized goods using general purpose equipment. As there are flexibility to add or
change products by general equipment based on customer demand, so the process is
intermittent.
Inventory for work-in-process shoes are maintained in large quantities so that customers
demand can be met without any hurdle. Inventory cost is high for carrying a large amount
of work in process inventory.
Individual employees performance is set by monitoring their work and activities so that
AFL can provide incentives for their good performance.
Per unit cost in the production process is high in AFL for some reasons like new design
approval, high import cost, complex scheduling and routine.

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Matching Process with Layout:
Apex Footwear has a wide range of products, like shoes for men, women and children, footwear
accessories, bags and purses. To satisfy their clients, the workers and employees need to make
facility layout and design their process in such a way that both should need to match each other.
If both matches with one another, this will result in optimum utilization of workforce and
equipment. Therefore reducing possible cost and increasing the profit.
We are focusing on one product here and that is Mens formal shoes. The clients place an order
for a specific category of shoes, which are mens formal shoes here. The clients provide some
specific designs, which are sent to make a sample of at first. If the clients approve it then it is
sent for production. They cannot make changes to their designs anymore after sending the
approved sample. The selected design is made in bulk in order to fulfill the requirements to send
them to different outlets throughout Bangladesh. Therefore we can conclude that they are using
Batch as their process design.
One of the key components of optimum production is to have the right facility layout. As far as
we have seen the manufacturing section of AFL, the sequence of workstations, areas of
bottlenecks and the competitive areas state that process layout design is the appropriate design.
In order to maintain costs yet provide different arrays of formal shoes, AFL produces its different
types of shoes in batches. Hence batch production is the perfect match for process layout for
optimum output with maximum return.

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Conclusion:

Apex Footwear Limited is a leading export-oriented leather footwear manufacturer and also one
of the fastest growing footwear companies in the local market of Bangladesh. In throughout this
whole report we saw that Apex Footwear has not only had operational goals but also healthy
missions and visions that reach for its long term goals. It achieves this by offering various forms
of products and products lines designed for different demo graphs. Through this all Apex has
become successful and established itself as what it is today. Overall Apex seems to be growing
into more customers centric and human driven, and their financial statements agree with them in
that.

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References:

Apex. (n.d.). Retrieved from Apex Footwear Limited:

http://www.apexfootwearltd.com/apex_footwear/Contact

Stevenson, W. J. (n.d.). Operations Management. Mc GRAW-HILL.

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