Johannesburg — WHEN the MD of one of our member companies in Cape Town figured out that a worker on the blouse line walked a total of 11km a month up and down the factory floor, he realised the size of his efficiency problem.

In this company, reorganising the floor and the production process has brought about a reduction in turnaround time for a garment from three weeks to four-and-a-half days. Due to many such interventions, some local manufacturers are proving that they can become world-class and compete with the likes of China, by adopting lean manufacturing methods and introducing ruthless inventory management disciplines.

The change was borne of necessity: cheap goods had been flooding into SA in the form of massive undervaluation and dumping of cancelled orders from the UK, US and Europe. Since the mid-1990s, the General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs saw the beginning of a long trend of job destruction in the clothing manufacturing industry internationally, as import barriers on clothing fell away. Soon afterwards, China entered the picture under the World Trade Organisation -- able to compete freely, despite many unfair advantages.

The enormity of the China phenomenon is startling. Textile and clothing employment in China now stands at nearly 20-million people. The sector consumes 7,3-million tons of Chinese natural fibres a year, which supports no fewer than 100-million farmers.

Domestically, the clothing value chain has been grappling for some time to come up with a survival and growth strategy. A customised sector programme , which is the central product of this process, first drafted two years ago, was finally adopted by the cabinet last month.

The programme, drawn up through unprecedented collaboration between business and labour, outlines seven key action programmes, ranging from government and trade negotiations with China to prevent "distressed" goods entering the South African market to tackling problems of underinvoicing, illegal imports and securing the support of retailers to import only fairly priced goods.

The cabinet's support for this programme is a milestone. But as the example from the enterprise above proves, change at the level of the firm is also imperative. This is where lessons from the auto industry have proved to be instructive for clothing manufacturers.

When trade liberalisation hit SA's auto industry some years ago, two things happened. First, the industry secured a package of government support through the Motor Industry Development Programme , but second, it also invested substantially in transforming manufacturing processes along the lines of international best practice, known as World Class Manufacturing (WCM).

WCM, which includes concepts such as just-in-time, total quality management and continuous improvement, uses operational methods such as working in self-managed teams rather than under old-fashioned supervisors. In the auto industry, WCM brought massive benefits in increased efficiencies, innovation, human resource management transformation and a new way of interacting with and managing the supply chain.

The suggestion that perhaps the same could be applied to the clothing industry came from industrial engineering consultant Justin Barnes, who had worked closely with the auto sector. After discussions with the Cape Clothing Association and the Western Cape government, a pilot study was agreed upon. Among those who joined the initiative, significant improvements were achieved in overall levels of competitiveness.

This pilot project led to the formation of two clothing and textile industry clusters -- in Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal -- where firms (backed equally by provincial government and industry money) are trained in manufacturing best practice and value-chain alignment. The first step for manufacturers who signed up was a study tour of auto component manufacturers in Port Elizabeth. Some clothing manufacturers were dismissive, arguing that clothing and cars were too different, but others saw that the principles of WCM could be applied to their own factories.

Graham Choice, the chairman of the Cape Clothing Cluster Initiative, regularly emphasises that the challenge was not to attempt to compete with China on price but to create a value proposition to domestic retailers, based on quality, flexibility, speed and reliability. China is 13000km away. Containers of finished garments spend two months on the water before docking in SA. But local manufacturers, especially those in Cape Town, are only a few kilometres from their customers, making it possible to produce short runs in multiple colours that can be restocked fast.

This concept is known as "fast fashion" and has been embraced by the world's most successful top-end retailers. The finest example of international best practice in fashion retailing is Spanish chain Zara, which has the highest turnover and margins in the business. Zara turns its stock over 11 times a year. In SA, the average number of times retailers turn their stock over is five times a year. Significantly, Zara, which also learnt from the auto sector and had its production infrastructure designed by retired Toyota engineers, sources fabric and garments in its home base of Portugal and Spain to allow it to be responsive.

Part of the South African clothing cluster's objective is to align WCM principles with the demands of fast fashion -- in business school terms, "value-chain alignment". The ultimate aim is the establishment of "obligational" relationships throughout the clothing and retail value chain. In the auto industry, this was achieved between component and car manufacturers, where the latter undertook to make commitments to orders over agreed time frames in return for investment in technology and plant upgrades as well as delivery of world-class products by their suppliers.

In the clothing sector, the various business stakeholders in the value chain formed the Business Alliance, a joint consultation forum and think-tank to work towards building these value-chain relationships and towards a joint vision for the sector as a whole.

Ultimately, we have learnt that WCM amounts to success in three key areas: upgrading, upgrading and upgrading. Business plans will have to reflect the values of continuous improvement across every aspect of the manufacturing, human resources, supply chain and customer service spectrum.

The quotas on Chinese imports of garments and fabric are temporary. Restricting imports from China has, among other unintended consequences, meant that retailers have turned elsewhere: to India, Madagascar, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Cambodia. The continuing existence of tariffs on imported fabric has been damaging for the clothing industry. Scrapping of these tariffs is something the government should seriously consider . Given the labour-intensive nature of clothing manufacturing and its ability to create jobs at low levels of entry, it is imperative to establish an internationally competitive cost base to the single biggest cost input to local clothing manufacturers -- fabric.

The cluster experience in the clothing sector shows how effective it can be when employers acknowledge that they can learn from one another by sharing information and participating in joint benchmarking initiatives. An integral part of WCM is the need for "collective efficiency". It is not possible to be an island of efficiency in a sea of mediocrity. For SA's clothing industry to succeed in building a sustainable internationally competitive value chain, more companies, including our retail partners, need to embrace all initiatives geared towards improved chain alignment, world-class manufacturing and benchmarking against international best practice.

This must become the norm, rather than the exception.

Baard is the executive director of the Cape Clothing Association and the divisional director: trade and industrial policy affairs for the Seardel Group.