Quality Improvement & Problem solving Training at “Mahila Bunkar Sahakari Samiti”

Venue: MBSS , Uttar Pradesh
Date: February 15-17, 2013

SETU organized a three – day interactive workshop & problem solving session with our partner handloom weavers of Mahila Bunkar Sahakari Samiti (MBSS) from 15th to 17th February.

MBSS is a co-operative of artisans in U.P. who create some of our beautiful home décor items and bags. The cooperative aims to organize the weavers of different villages in western Uttar Pradesh, and to train women with marketable skills.

The session was planned to solve general issues that artisans face during sampling & new product development. Team of SETU designers worked with them on the shop floor to understand their issues & provide solutions. Some of the key factors discussed were as under:

1. Achieving consistent quality

2. Flexibility in Product Development- Integrating changes in quality, design & production quantity aligning with the customer requirements.

3. Time saving in setting the handloom- Presently, the weavers are re-setting the loom if they need to add more threads later, which is a time consuming task. They were provided with tips like inserting new eyehealds with the extra threads that can be tied at a height to avoid entanglement with the other spools.

4. Reducing rejections.

5. Colour fastness.

The weavers’ problems were also understood by our designers. In most cases, buyers provide artisans with Product specification sheet which gives them detailed description of design criteria like Color, Design Graph, Drafting, Denting, Height-Width dimensions. But those are not easy to understand by the weavers themselves, so they want the sheets to be more graphical & pictorial. This may help them understand it more accurately, without any guidance.