Basically, converting yarns or fabrics into a form of wearable item is known as the garment manufacturing. The industry is highly labor intensive and therefore, the industry moves through countries where the labor cost is comparatively low. Sometimes this industry is referred as a ‘foot loose’ industry. Due to the high labor cost in USA and low price products imported from other countries, USA government imposed a barrier to import garments from the other countries. The intention was to safe guard the local (USA) garment manufacturers. The system is known as the MFA (Multi Fibre Agreement). Due to the USA quota system, garment buyers came to countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, Vietnam, Korea and so on. Garments were imported from these countries to USA through the quota system. There were quota category numbers to identify different types of garment like Shirts, Knit shirts, Jackets so on.The quota system is now phased out (in year 2005) and it created a high competition among garment manufacturers all over the world. As a result, there is a tendency in reducing the garment buying rates.

Basically, any garment industry has departments/sections as stated below
Fabric stores
Accessory stores
Merchandising
Production Planning and Control
Cutting department
Sample room / Product development department
Sewing floor
Pressing and packing department

The above departments are directly related to the garment production. In addition, there would be few more section as per the value adding operations involved.

Supportive staff can be allocated to Personnel department, Work study department, Quality assurance department, Maintenance, Garment washing, Mending, Human Resource development, Medical centre etc, etc.

In general, the merchandising department has to arrange the orders for production. They are responsible for purchasing fabric, accessories and threads. Merchandisers should ensure all the materials are in-house prior to production. Most importantly they should get the sample approvals for production. Fabric purchasing has to be done as per the estimated consumption rates.

The sewing department is loaded by the cutting department. Therefore, the cutting in-charge should plan ahead properly to make sure the sewing department will not suffer due to unavailability of cut panels in time. A continuous feeding is required to maintain the productivity of sewing operators. In general, cutting is done in bulk. It involves marker making, fabric spreading and cutting. Cutting will be done by a straight knife. Band knife is used to cut panels more precisely.

Sewing machines in the sewing floor are arranged into sewing lines. The number of machines in a line depends on the garment to be sewn in that line. There may be a combination of different type of machines in one line depending on the garment construction. However, the machine lay-out is changed according to the garment style.