Remote Sensing of Sewing Work Levels Using a Power Monitoring System

The measurement of sewing work in the labor-intensive garment industry depends considerably on the person performing the measurements, making it difficult to quantitatively define the level of skill (L-S) of the sewing machine operator and the level of difficulty (L-D) of the unit process. In this study, a power monitoring system attached to the sewing machine was used to remotely collect power consumption data, which were then analyzed to extract the working times for a series of sewing tasks. L-S of each operator was then classified and L-D of each process was analyzed in terms of working time and quality. Finally, the resulting L-S and L-D weight factors considered to optimize the subject garment production line were compared against those proposed by experts. The L-S weight factor proposed by the experts was similar to 15% less than that indicated by the experimental results, whereas the L-D weight factor proposed by the experts was similar to 15%-40% greater than that indicated by the experimental results. The results of this study suggest that the proposed method could be applied in real time to inform the arrangement of line workers to increase the productivity of a garment production line.