Sustainable Operations Management and Collective Action in Samut Prakan’s Tie-Dye Clothing Community Based Enterprises

Abstract

These are the mix-methods research studies that investigated the sustainability operations of the tie-dye clothing industry in Samut Prakan Province. The primary objectives were to: 1) assess the operational management of tie-dye clothing among local collective groups in Samut Prakan, and 2) formulate capacity-building strategies for community-based enterprises in order to catalyze sustainable revenue, scale existing successes, and cultivate a unique brand identity that drives job creation and thereby reinforces the community’s economic foundation. The population and sample comprised 50 natural fiber tie-dyers in Samut Prakan Province, consisting of 45 questionnaire respondents and 5 in-depth interview participants. They were chosen by using stratified random sampling with a 5% margin of error. Interviews and questionnaires were employed as study instruments.

The results of the study showed that the goal of the group formation was to generate monetary income, and that the tie-dye clothing management system, group management, and group products had an overall average opinion level of high. Older and unemployed women with less secondary education made up the bulk of the sample group. By means of group projects, they learned on how to tie dyes. The group members traditional local expertise provided the operating budget for the tie-dyeing activity. Ten production phases took eight to nine days as stated by the production management system. Among the ten production phases by analyzed using the Critical Path Method (CPM), the critical path analysis reveals that node 8 (Activity H: soaking in color - fixative solution) is a non-critical activity, as its total slack = 7.042-5.063 = 1.98, is not equal to zero. Twenty percent of the money was taken out for the group once the tie-dying activity was finished, and the remaining amount was divided among the group members.