Ocean Lanka implements FastReactPlan

Ocean Lanka (Pvt) Ltd is Sri Lanka’s largest weft knitted fabric manufacturer and exporter. Operating from a single factory in Biyagama Export Processing Zone, Sri Lanka. With over 250 knitting, 62 dyeing and 5 printing machines, the factory’s output is estimated at 24 million lbs. annually.

Ocean Lanka is highly regarded among it’s international customers, including Victoria’s Secret, Nike, Marks and Spencer, GAP, Adidas and Next. The company was recently awarded with three top honours at the NCE Annual Export Awards, winning the Gold Awards for ‘Suppliers to Exporters Sector’ in the Extra Large Category and ‘Best Performer in Research and Development’. The company was also the recipient of the much coveted ‘Highest Export Turnover’ Special Award.

Production capacity – 24 million lbs. annually
Sri Lanka

20 %

rise in productivity

33 %

increase in capacity

The challenge

Through product diversification, the company offers a variety of in-house textile innovations and customised solutions to it’s large customer base, honouring commitments and sustaining high standards in both products and good governance practices. However, with overwhelming demand, meeting customer needs and optimising the capacity of machines has proven to be a major challenge.

Ocean Lanka’s knitting department which implemented FastReactPlan

Additionally, managing inter-department capacities through numerous spreadsheets have led to poor visibility and coordination, resulting in uncertainty during decision making. As a result, efficiencies were low and material WIP inventory levels were relatively high.

Whilst the traditional focus of manufacturers was on production efficiency, current demands require reliable information flowing across the supply chain, providing visibility across all core functions.

The solution

FastReactPlan has allowed Ocean Lanka to prioritise and manage their activities to meet their increasing customer demands. This has improved coordination and reduced both response time and overall lead time.

Mr Rajitha Wijerathna, Senior Manager – PPC & ERP System Ocean Lanka Pvt. Ltd. commented, “Since using FastReactPlan, we have improved efficiency and productivity by 20% within the last 2 years. Consequently, this has increased our daily production from 60 lbs. to 80 lbs., which is a 33% increase in machine capacity utilisation. This is a significant achievement, as we are now well poised to serve our customer demands with improved flexibility and are able to plan our operations much more efficiently, with clear coordination and seamless communication among production units.”

The conclusion

“There is now, more than ever, the need to create interdisciplinary team cohesion. FastReactPlan helps us to create new epistemologies in terms of effective production processes in both textile and beyond, by accelerating the assets to reach their full commercial potential and increasing the ability to cater to special customer requirements.

This effectively translates to producing fabrics at high speed of suitable quality, enabling competitive production of special textiles and elegant clothing.”
Dr. Austin Au, Chief Executive Officer
Ocean Lanka Pvt Ltd.