Executive Shirt 455378
Executive Shirt Company, Inc
HBR Case Study
Existing Business
• Executive Shirt Company (ESC) provides high-quality, competitively-priced men’s dress shirts
• With the existing production system, custom-made shirts demand at least 75% higher price compared to off-the-shelf shirts
• Customers are required to wait 6 weeks or longer to receive custom-sized shirts
Expansion of Business
• General Manager Dwight Collier decided to expand company’s product line
• Several retailers expressed enthusiasm for ESC expansion into custom shirts
• Collier decided to begin production of a line of moderately-priced custom-made dress shirts
Business Parameters
• Custom-made dress shirts would be delivered within 10 working days after the customer placed the order
• Custom shirts would command a $10 wholesale and $20 retail price premium over standardsized shirts
ESC Shirts
• Current production process was designed to make large volume of shirts with limited product variety and relatively constant demand
• Shirts were offered in a few basic styles and colors
• White and blue shirts constituted over 80% of total sales volume
• All production takes place at a traditional batch process ESC Production Facility
Shop floor is divided into two work area:
• Cutting area
• Assembly area
Cutting Area
Assembly Area
ESC Cutting Facility
• Shirt patterns are cut on a computer-controlled cutting machine • Shirt patterns are cut as many as 60 layers of cloth at a time • It takes 1.5 minutes to roll out each layer of fabric on the cutting table (90 minutes for 60 layers)
• Once the fabric is laid out, it takes on average 30 minutes to cut all pieces for the 8 patterns and remove them for the cutting table
Cutting Pattern
ESC Cutting Operation
• Cutting took the same amount of time regardless of the number of layers of cloth being cut
• Four cutting machine operators are fully utilized while the cloth is being laid out and cut
• After cutting, the shirts are batched into batches of
HBR Case Study
Existing Business
• Executive Shirt Company (ESC) provides high-quality, competitively-priced men’s dress shirts
• With the existing production system, custom-made shirts demand at least 75% higher price compared to off-the-shelf shirts
• Customers are required to wait 6 weeks or longer to receive custom-sized shirts
Expansion of Business
• General Manager Dwight Collier decided to expand company’s product line
• Several retailers expressed enthusiasm for ESC expansion into custom shirts
• Collier decided to begin production of a line of moderately-priced custom-made dress shirts
Business Parameters
• Custom-made dress shirts would be delivered within 10 working days after the customer placed the order
• Custom shirts would command a $10 wholesale and $20 retail price premium over standardsized shirts
ESC Shirts
• Current production process was designed to make large volume of shirts with limited product variety and relatively constant demand
• Shirts were offered in a few basic styles and colors
• White and blue shirts constituted over 80% of total sales volume
• All production takes place at a traditional batch process ESC Production Facility
Shop floor is divided into two work area:
• Cutting area
• Assembly area
Cutting Area
Assembly Area
ESC Cutting Facility
• Shirt patterns are cut on a computer-controlled cutting machine • Shirt patterns are cut as many as 60 layers of cloth at a time • It takes 1.5 minutes to roll out each layer of fabric on the cutting table (90 minutes for 60 layers)
• Once the fabric is laid out, it takes on average 30 minutes to cut all pieces for the 8 patterns and remove them for the cutting table
Cutting Pattern
ESC Cutting Operation
• Cutting took the same amount of time regardless of the number of layers of cloth being cut
• Four cutting machine operators are fully utilized while the cloth is being laid out and cut
• After cutting, the shirts are batched into batches of