SMV & SAM The Clear Concept.

SMV, Standard Minute Value

SMV is the mostly used term in Industrial Engineering. This term is used in every
manufacturing industry, since Bangladesh is the country of garment manufacturing
industries so SMV is the most familiar term here.
Industrial engineers are understanding this term very easily cause they are learning this
type of terms during their study but the non IE peoples are failing to understand clearly
and I’m writing few words for those who are willing to learn but failing to understand due
to complicacy:

• What actually SMV mean ?

• What is the use of SMV in Garment Manufacturing Industries ?
• How SMV can be determined ?

Out of above 3 questions today I’ll discuss “What actually SMV mean ?”

Abbreviation of SMV is Standard Minute Value which means every specific job is required
to be completed within a specific period of time. Nobody is allowed to take unlimited time
to complete a specific job so the value of calculated accepted time for a specific job is
basically known as SMV or Standard Minute Value.
When quotation had been asked for Jatrabari Flyover from the contractor it had also been
asked how long it would take to complete the project. The contractor informed 1 year time
required to complete 5 KM long Jatrabari Flyover with the necessary amount of money.
Here a question is coming how contractor determined that 1 year time is required to
complete this 5 KM long Flyover ?
In the same way if we could calculate how much time is required to make a Shirt or a Pant
in a garment manufacturing industries then we can calculate how many Shirt can be made
in a line per day and how much time required to complete a specific amount of quantity
to meet buyer’s shipment schedule.
On the other hand, how much Shirt or Pant required to be produced to meet per day per
line expenses. That is also required to be calculated and cost per minute is calculated
through SMV.

So SMV or Standard Minute Value is such an important term which is determining every
important process of every manufacturing industry.

Pls ask SMV related questions so that more clarification could be made for easy
understanding.
The second question was “What is the use of SMV in Garment Manufacturing Industries
?”
• SMV is used for determining Workers Efficiency.
• SMV is used for determining Efficiency of Production Line.
• SMV is used to for determining what should be the Production
• Target for the specific operation & for the production line of a specific style.
• SMV is used for determining Loss of Time during production and Loss of Productivity.
• SMV is used for determining Capacity of Lines as well as full factory or unit.
• SMV is used for determining Production Cost.
Above are the major operational functions done with the help of SMV.

The Third question was How SMV can be determined ?

SMV is basically a measurement task of a work content. In garment manufacturing

industry every operation is measured until a complete body is ready for shipment.
Estimating SMV in garment manufacturing industries is really an important task. It could
be determined by GSD (General Sewing Data) which is a software & can give you more or
less accurate calculation very nearer & acceptable result.

GSD (General Sewing Data) is a software which is having data base of various sewing
process & accepted average TMU of each process. When data is asked from the GSD let’s
say for Shirt and it will ask you some questions like Formal Shirt or Casual Shirt,
European Size or USA size, It will also ask whether any special operation is required for
that specific styling or not, fabric, SPI, Operation Length ect and based on that, GSD will
generate SMV what is more or less accurate & accepted data.

Another process is to take data directly from Machine, Operator and from every
operation. Every single operation is required to be noted for a specific style. Activities
done by the operator like aligning parts, placing in sewing machine, handling curves
during sewing ect. required to be noted carefully.

Aligning parts, placing those parts in sewing machine, handling curves during sewing are
the process done by the operator & all together these processes are called Operation.
Time taking for the operation is called Cycle Time and the data collected during Process,
Operation and Cycle Time are called Synthetic Data.

Data for every operation required to be noted couple of times to have an average value.
Value of data is assessed by TMU (Time Measuring Unit) which is calculated 1 TMU =
0.0006 minute.
Mathematical calculation determining SMV will be discussed in next article.

SAM, Standard Allowed Minute.

In my earlier articles I tried to discuss elaborately to make people understand the term of
SMV and had discussed following.

• What actually SMV mean ?

• What is the use of SMV in Garment Manufacturing Industries?
• How SMV can be determined ?
• Mathematical determination of SMV

Lots of likes came and still coming but I didn’t liked these likes cause I’m failing to
understand whether people read, understood and confusion eliminated or they’ve given
likes as usual they are giving.

Yesterday Mr Keerthi Abe an Srilankan IE Expert commented, and he tried to inform that
SMV and SAM are same but these 2 terms are not same. I’ve given reply on that comment
& I think this should be known to all.

Upon receipt of the comment of Mr. Keerthi Abe I tried to find out whether I’m doing
wrong somewhere and found lots of articles where SMV & SAM are described same. In
some articles it has been described that SMV is used in USA and SAM is used in EU but
these are completely wrong concept.

However, I’m trying to give an example which will help to understand these terms clearly.
This example has already been given to Mr. Keerthi Abe and I hope he will also be
consentaneous with me.

Mr. Sadi is working in a garment manufacturing Industry as sewing supervisor. His

Basic Salary -- Tk. 7500/-

House Rent (40% of Basic Salary) -- Tk 3000/-
Conveyance (25% of Basic Salary) -- Tk. 1875/-
Medical (15% of Basic Salary) -- Tk. 1125/-

Total Gross Salary -- Tk. 13500/-

Here it is shown that all allowances like House Rent, Conveyance and Medical are
depending on Basic Salary. Various percentages for allowances are added with basic
salary to make salary structure.

Now basic salary is fundamentally SMV which mean only Operation Time is the time
which is called Standard Minute Value and Gross Salary is fundamentally SAM which
mean when all the allowances are included with SMV then it becomes SAM .

From above example we now have understood regarding money allowances but what
about the allowances what we really need to complete a job properly. These allowances
are basically time allowances :

BHA (10%) -- Bundle Handling Allowance

PNFDA (20%) -- Personal Need, Fatigue and Unavoidable Delay Allowances.
CDA (5%) -- Contingency Delay Allowance

Now if we mathematically define then it is coming :

SAM = SMV + Allowance % i.e.
SAM = SMV + 35%

Mathematical determination of SMV

To proceed with the mathematical determination of SMV, need to know clearly that SMV
or Standard Minute Value is the value of TMU or Time Measurement Unit of an operation
only.

No other value is added or included with this value. It’s simply an unique value of an
operation from starting to complete means Pick-up, Operate & Dispose. In garment
manufacturing industry Pairing the Parts, Aligning in the Machine and Sewing are the
basic operations. TMU of a specific operation comparing with an acceptable standard is
SMV.

To make the calculation more accurate TMU of an operation is taken couple of times
which is known as Cycle Time and this Cycle Times are then divided by No. of Cycle to
have an average value. This average value is then called Observed Time.

Some of the following important things are required to be observed during operation and
that is the behavior of the operator which means :
• Whether the operator working actively ?
• Whether the operator is working lazily ?
• Whether operator is careless or careful to perform the operation ?
• Whether the operator is showing his best performance during visit of his boss ?
• Whether the operator is afraid during visit of his boss & trying to perform better ?
• Whether the operator is performing as usual ?
• Whether the machine is ok to perform the operation ?
• Whether the sitting arrangement is comfortable enough to perform the operation ?
• Whether the atmosphere is comfortable enough to perform the operation ?
Performance of an operator is depending on above situations & circumstances and all
together these situations & circumstances are called Rating. Rating is basically an
assessment of activity comparing with a standard. Standard rating of performance is
denoted as 100% on performance rating scales.

From above discussion we found following 3 important factors and these are :

Cycle Time
Observed Time
Rating

These factors are the main element for mathematical calculation of SMV and again we
need to come back to the point which is :
TMU of a specific operation comparing with an acceptable standard is SMV.
So we can define in a way that when cycle time of an operation is observed with TMU and
value of the same are compared with Rating and result of this is basically SMV .
So according to above

SMV = (Total Cycle time / No of cycle) x {(Observed Rating * Standard rating) / Standard
rating}

SMV = Observed Time x Rating

• Observed time = Total Cycle time / No of cycle
• Rating = (Observed Rating * Standard rating) / Standard rating

S. S. Munna
Executive Director
Creative Collections Ltd.
Ha-Meem Group
01711 621 703