SAM – Standard Allowed Minute

In this article you will understand what is SAM and how SAM is calculated.

SAM is a most widely term used in garment industry. Almost everything depends on SAM. Industrial engineering department continuously works on SAM. I would say The Term SAM is heart of garment industry.

So Let’s understand what is SAM.

SAM stands for:

Standard Allowed Minute in short it is a Time allowed to do a particular task. Mostly it is measured in Minutes or Second.

It is used to measure work content of a garment and then work content for individual operation. Also SAM is useful costing purpose.

Suppose one operator is doing repetitive work then study has been done previously to assign a target on the basis of the time required to do a particular task. The target setting for any task can be done on the base of SAM.

There are 2 methods by which SAM can be calculated

1. SAM calculation by Time study.
2. SAM calculation by using Synthetic Data.

SAM Calculation by Time study

This method is a manual and conventicle method where SAM is calculated by formula.

Standard Allowed Minute= (Cycle Time*Operator Rating)+Allowance %

Here,

Cycle Time * Operator Rating is also known as basic time or standard minute value.

Step 1: Select an operation for which SAM is to be calculated.

Step 2: observe the operation carefully and see where the cycle gets complete. Here cycle means the operation gets repeat. mostly in sewing the operation include 3 phases – pick up the part, sew, dispatch the part and these 3 parts make one cycle. Cycle time is time required between pick up of one part to next pick up.

Step 3: After understanding one cycle use stop watch and calculate the time required to do one cycle. Take at least 5 readings of an operation and note it down. in this one should neglect the reading if any abnormality is there in reading.

Step 4: Calculate the average of all 5 cycle. Now most important part is to give operator performance rating in percentage. Depending on a performance and motion of an operator rating can be given from 75% to 125%. Now use the formula to calculate basic time. That is

Basic time or SMV = Cycle Time * Operator Rating

So this basic time is actually a minimum time required to do a particular task.

Step 5: No person can work continuously for whole day. Person needs some allowance in time. Now the last step is to add allowance to calculate SAM.

SAM = (Cycle Time * Operator Rating) + Allowance %

Allowance percentage changes from organization to organization. Some organization gives fix 10 % or 15 % or 20% allowance. Some organization gives variable allowance in which they take bundle handling allowance, machine delay allowance, personal allowance and contingency allowance.

SAM Calculation by Using Synthetic Data

In this method software is used to calculate Sam.

Research says to do any motion a standard time is needed and this time can be measured in Time minute unit (TMU).

GSD or PMTS can be used to calculate SAM.

In these software all the details one should feed.

Step 1: Select one operation for which you want to calculate SAM.

Step 2: Observe the motion and note all the motions of one cycle for example (Pick, match, align etc,) as per software put the codes in to the software. Once all the codes are inserted, the software will convert those codes in to TMU value and this TMU is output of the software. Additional data is supposed to be feed to calculate SAM by software method and these are

• Type of machine
• Machine speed
• Type of seam
• Stich class and number
• Seam length
• Work posture( standing/seating)
• Type of handling (bundle handling/ups etc.)

As an output you will get TMU value for an operation.

Step 3: Now convert TMU value in to seconds or minute (1 TMU=1/26 Sec= 0.0006 Min). Now with this you will get SMV value after adding allowances one can get SAM. With latest software even allowance is taken automatically and directly software gives SAM.