Purpose The garment factories focus on improving their production systems by involving innovative and advanced production methods and/or techniques to cope with fast-changing trends. Accordingly, this study aims to establish the standard allowed minutes (SAMs) and sewing efficiencies for Tanzania’s sewing industry, thus improving the production processes. Design/methodology/approach The research deployed a quantitative method. A stopwatch measured each operation for shirts and trousers to compute SAMs and efficiency. The shirt manufacturing processes involved 40 operations. Ten measurements were taken from different SL and LL industries operators for each operation. The trouser comprised 42 operations with 10 measurements taken from a different operator at the same garment factories for each operation. Findings SAMs for shirts at SL and LL factories were 29 and 31 min, respectively, while trousers were 30 and 34 min. The sewing efficiencies for shirts at both SL and LL factories were 83.98% and 81.93%, respectively. Similarly, the sewing efficiencies for trousers at both SL and LL factories were 81.25% and 80.95%, respectively. Research limitations/implications Since SAMs results are not established through literature rather a quantitative approach, the findings thus place crucial information for similar factories to benchmark from. Such information are crucial as factories could increase productivity and operational efficiency, reduce costs and non-value adding activities and estimate lead times. Notwithstanding the findings gathered, the study only established SAMs for two garments. Originality/value Although the garment industry has been developing over the years, this study was probably among the first studies in Tanzania that established SAMs. Theoretical underpinnings indicate that the factories use the experience to assemble garments, thus the need for this study.

Growth and development in the textile and fashion industry have resulted in the generation of large amounts of industrial pre-consumer textile wastes. It is estimated that 10 to 20% of textile fabrics are wasted during garment manufacturing, with most of the wastes being burned or landfilled. Reusing pre-consumer fabric wastes is therefore considered a viable approach to alleviate environmental impacts associated with their disposal. To achieve a higher porosity membrane, pre-consumer cotton fabrics were partially dissolved in a solution of dimethyl acetamide (DMAc) and lithium chloride (LiCl), and the resulting fibre suspension was utilized to prepare a microporous cellulose membrane (MCM) through a vacuum filtration method. The suspension comprised a mixture of partially and completely dissolved fibres, which provided the required morphological and structural integrity to the fibrous membranes. The membranes’ chemical structure, fibre size, and morphology were characterized based on Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), light microscope, and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), respectively. The filtration efficiency of the microporous cellulose membranes was evaluated against 500 ppm sodium chloride (NaCl) solutions. The results showed that the filtration efficiency of the membranes ranged between 31.82 and 59.85% for cellulose membranes with 60.2% porosity, suggesting that the membranes could be applied as filters against pathogens upon further improvement.