Part Family Formation of Ethiopian Cultural Clothing by using Group Technology Coding System

Abstract

This research mainly focuses on proposing an appropriate classification and coding system for Ethiopian cultural clothing. Previous research has been conducted and a suitable classification and coding system was recommended by different researchers. And this is the first research in its kind that applied the concept of group technology to improve performance of small and micro enterprises that produce cultural clothing. The current small and micro enterprises that produce cultural clothing are applying an informal grouping technique. Because of this, they spend too much time to design, set price, explain the property of the product to customers, and retrieve an already designed parts. In order to investigate this fact, samples of 111 small and micro enterprises that produce cultural clothes around Gulele sub-city were studied. To conduct this study questionnaire, semi-structured interview and observation were employed. The information gathered by questionnaire was analyzed by SPSS software to analyze the producers’ perspective on grouping similar parts together. The result indicates that the producers’ believe that if their products are grouped together it will save the time they spent trying to explain about the product. The codes will enhance better productivity by enabling the producers to estimate precise selling price; with the symbols representing the characteristics of a certain product. They can also be used to document a specific design and retrieve it for later use. This act will enable the producers to eliminate duplication of effort by designing the same part more than once. DCLASS coding system is adopted and customized to classify and code parts of the cultural clothing. A database is developed to store the designs of these parts and use it for retrieval in the future. Future researchers can classify and code other textile products and they can develop another classifying and coding technique that represents the parts more than DCLASS coding does.