Application of fuzzy concept in the apparel industry

A Fuzzy Line-Balancing (FLB) model is proposed to handle the line-balancing problem of fabric-spreading and cutting operations of the apparel manufacturing process. The level of work-in-progress on each spreading table is reviewed with planned target at predefined time which will give fuzzy input variables to the fuzzy model. The schedule of generated by spreading and cutting sequencing model using genetic algorithm [3] was compared with that of FLB model under the dynamic manufacturing environment. The results indicated that the proposed model could assist the production management to solve the line-balancing problem in the dynamic manufacturing environment of the apparel industry.