Production and Inventory Planning in the Beedi Industry

Abstract

The beedi is a small roll of finely cut tobacco, wrapped in kendu leaf and held together by a thread, smoked mostly by agricultural and industrial workers in south Asia. The beedi production process in India is very labor intensive. The industry is in effect a conglomerate of cottage industries. This study focuses on the aggregate production and inventory planning problem of a contractor whose existing inventory policy for leaves was not based on any systematic analysis. The suggested inventory model resulted in significant cost savings. His plan for increasing production is compared with other alternatives, and it is shown that marginal profit can be increased by adopting a different production plan.

Estimating the Size of Tendu Leaf and Bidi Trade Using a Simple Back-of-the-Envelop Method

“…For simplicity of calculation and accounting for production factors (like quality of leaves, skill of labour which can reduce wastage, damage to leaves during the entire production cycle, etc.) it is assumed that every tendu leaf produces just one bidi (Giriappa 1987;Lingaraj 1980). The difference between the total number of bidis produced (using bidi tobacco production data) and the national tendu production provides an estimate of the size of the private, unregulated and illicit tendu market validating the estimates derived and Deepak Tamang for his support to preparing the figure.…”

Nimble Fingers on Beedis: Problems of Girl Child Labour in Sambalpur and Jharsuguda

“…Beedi production is extremely labour intensive, officially estimated to provide employment for 6.4 million people. 1 Unofficial estimates go even higher as accurate data is not available—possibly excluding many small manufacturers located in remote rural areas (Lingaraj, 1980). Workers in this industry, mostly women and girls, are deprived of the benefits of various labour laws, recreational opportunities and welfare provisions.…”