Quality and Productivity of the Garment industry in Vietnam

Every year, 80 billion garments are produced worldwide. In 2015, Vietnam produced 3.9 billion garments (1.5 times the number of products in 2010).

Vietnamese manufatures have skillful workers who can produce a variety of items such as shirts, coats, pants, and garment productortswear to underwear, t-shirts, skirts, suits, etc. However, the garment industry still has limitations which affecting to productivity of product.

Trouble with on time delivery because most of materials are imported

Garment manufacturing of Vietnam mainly produce based on orders, these manufacture lack and weak in designing. The biggest drawback of Vietnamese Garment manufacturing is the inability to take initiative in domestic raw materials: when the risk of raw materials is delayed, companies will not be able to meet the delivery on time, leading to to cases incurring cost penalties for contract performance and insufficient financial capability to prevent settlement.

Trouble with more downtime because have to waiting for imported materials

The average production time of Vietnamese goods is still lower than that of Thailand and India: For garments, the total production time is a big factor affecting the order decisions of international customers. Manufacturing time here includes the time from when retailers / firms place orders with Vietnamese garment manufacturing until the goods are ready for delivery. The average production time of Vietnamese goods is 60-90 days, shorter than Bangladesh and Cambodia (80-120 days) but longer than China, India, Thailand (40-90 days). In general, the difference in production time is mainly due to the difference in the time of importing materials and trangarment productorting to Vietnam; and how Vietnamese orders are handled is weak.

Strengths of the Garment industry – productivity of sewing stage is equivalent to the region’s productivity

Vietnam’s textile and apparel industry is having an advantage in the international arena of sewing. This stage is considered to be the most advantageous in the chain: Yarn – Weaving, dyeing – Sewing – Distributing products. Productivity quality of sewing products of some units in the industry may be similar to that of some countries in the region and in the world in terms of the same technology used. However, overall, the productivity of Vietnam’s garment industry is only at an average level. For example: Shirt productivity: 17-35 shirts / labor / work shift; Productivity Pants: 14-25 garment product / labor / work shifts.

Based on the additional investment of garment productecialized equipment and automation, the productivity of Vietnamese garment enterprises still has much room for improvement.

Productivity and Quality Office