Capacity Building And Export Market Readiness Training Workshop at ‘Mahila Bunkar Sahakari Samiti’

Venue: MBSS Surajpur, Uttar Pradesh
(29-30 March 2012)

SETU organized a two-day training & development workshop for our handloom weavers of Mahila Bunkar Sahakari Samiti on 29th & 30th march 2012 at Surajpur, (U.P.)., for Capacity Building & Readiness for Export Market.

MBSS is a co-operative group of artisans who create some of our beautiful home décor items as well as bags. The cooperative aims to organize the weavers of different villages in western Uttar Pradesh, and to train women with marketable skills. To date, more than 242 women artisans are working with this organization, who originally belong to the Schedule caste and the Schedule tribe community.

The workshop covered 2 basic objectives:

1) Capacity Building & motivation of artisans
2) Preparing the artisans & upgrading their skills for export market

The objective was to provide the artisans with elaborate knowledge & tips that are important in their everyday manufacturing, designing, buying and selling of products, preparing the products for export level quality, packaging management etc. Some of the key factors were discussed are as under:

1. Importance of quality for exports and their timely deliveries.
2. Achieving consistent quality
3. Maintaining better customer relationships and customer specification record.
4. Importance of customer complaint addressal & efficient communication
5. Flexibility: incorporating changes in quality, design & production quantity as per change in customer requirements.
6. Managing finances, working capital and optimizing the freight costs
7. Avoiding rejections & dead stocks
8. Packaging quality: reducing packaging cost without compromising on quality
9. Importance of non-toxic & natural dyes
10. Updating latest international trends and making new samples for international market.
11. Understanding the regulations and documentation for export.

On day one; Capacity Building session was initiated and was followed by the following major topics:

– Market Research: understanding needs of the customer,
– Types of Markets (Domestic & Export)
– Sourcing, Logistics / transportation,
– Design & production quantity as per customer requirements.
– Importance of quality control, elements of quality control, Inspection (Raw material, In-line & Final) & Inspection loop.
-Importance of quality for exports & establishment of quality standards,
-Matching delivery times,
-Cost reduction & optimization,
-Consistent quality and compliance.

On the second day, some of the pointers discussed are as under:

– Production planning and record keeping
– Packaging (purpose of packaging, types of packaging material, types of packing, packaging quality and reducing packaging cost)
– Latest international trends
– Eco-friendly dyes & chemicals
– Regulations for export, export license, documentation etc, Inco terms, Payment terms

With this workshop, the artisans were updated about design development, Indian & Export market opportunities that they can look for, product value for export market, better packaging training, fine stitching techniques, motivation for the business and time management. How to build up capacity, bring discipline, save time, create quality products with reduced rejections & wastes, increase productivity with least possible resources etc. were also the highlights.

The attendees were also compensated for their daily earnings along with an issue of certificate for attending this workshop which can works as an authentication for their skills.