In an impressive gesture to improve profitability and competitiveness Tirupur is building five mini-clusters. Four of the mini-clusters comprise garment production units and the remaining cluster has textile printing units. According to T R Vijayakumar, coordinator of Tirupur Thozhil Pathukappu Kuzhu which is facilitating the implementation of the project, a few more mini-clusters comprising knitting units would soon be constituted. Each of the clusters had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Quality Council of India and MSME Ministry to get employees trained for lean manufacturing practices that were followed in industrial units in Japan.

Each mini-cluster has 10 homogeneous units involved in identical activities of the garment production processes. The mini-clusters have the privilege to select the trainers from among the approved list of people published by the Quality Council of India for such purposes.

Once the training cycle is over, the profitability of the units involved in the scheme will go up considerably through minimization of material wastes and reducing unwanted procedures in the manufacturing process.