Management Excellence in Ready-Made Garment Manufacturing with an Intelligent Factory Operating System in the Industry 5.0 Era

Management excellence in ready-made garment (RMG) manufacturing has traditionally been pursued through lean production, total quality management and industrial engineering discipline, supported by periodic reporting. These approaches remain valid, but their effect is limited when managers see the factory through reports that are hours or days old. This paper examines what management excellence means for an RMG factory in the Industry 5.0 era, in which human-centricity, sustainability and resilience are explicit goals alongside productivity. We draw on established management frameworks, including the plan-do-check-act cycle, lean production, the balanced scorecard and the EFQM model, and relate them to the capabilities of an intelligent factory operating system: one shared data model, event-based records, role-based accountability and explainable AI recommendations. We propose a management operating rhythm (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly) built on live data, a scorecard that balances delivery, cost, quality, people and sustainability, and a maturity model for management practice. The paper is conceptual and does not report a controlled study. Intelactory Working Paper Series, WP-2026-06. https://intelactory.com