BUS606: Operations and Supply Chain Management

The fashion industry has seen significant transformation in recent past. The rise of globalization trend in last few decades redefined the production strategy where outsourcing prevalent among many top brands. In order to remain competitive, many corporations feel they must send some of their jobs offshore because their competitors have already done so. Price combat among the brands urges for offshore production, on the other hand, product variety and quick replenishment complicates the manufacturing and distribution, because fashion industry is predominantly dealing with the products which are characterized by short product life cycles, volatile and unpredictable demand, tremendous product variety, long and inflexible supply processes, and a complex supply chain. Moreover, the evolvement of fast fashion brought new consumer groups and also enhanced the consumption by the existing groups. The consumer taste has changed over time, and the tendency is more varieties in short period. Since the 1980s, a typical life cycle for fashion apparel had four stages: introduction and adoption by fashion leaders; growth and increase in public acceptance; mass conformity (maturation); and finally the decline and obsolescence of fashion. The impact of the change is multidimensional, and its influence on the business is big. The supply chain is lingered and span is widened because of outsource potential from many sources.

The complexity and the span of the fashion supply chain draws attention of the academicians and practitioners which results many studies on the supply and demand management. According to Canever et al., the increased complexity, diversity and dynamics in consumer demand was forcing the whole business system to be more complex, more flexible, and more dynamic than ever before. The complexity propagates towards the supply chain among different stakeholders. The list of stakeholders in fashion chain is long, i.e. fibres, machinery and chemicals), manufacturers (clothing and textiles, including technical textiles), retailers and fashion bureaus; post-consumer actors; service providers (software, consultants, press, industry associations) and independent experts (scholars), the supply chain (SC) . and it grows truly complex as de Brito et al. state. The trend of outsourcing extended the span of company's operations and increased dependency to the external parties. Outsourcing is being driven by a desire to reduce the cost of operations, and the need for business flexibility to respond quickly to changing markets.

The present fashion market is demanding and such dynamic market asks products to be sometimes delivered even in three to four weeks' time from design to stores. The flexible nature of the market compels traditional operations to adapt agile strategy. As the fashion product supply chain is quite long and often consists of many different phases, therefore meeting the demand of the market is challenging. Although often the raw material and initial production process (such as weaving and stitching) may remain the same for multiple products from the same retailers, yet supplier has to start the raw material procurement and production process way before the order is received from retailers. A close collaboration throughout the chain is a must as operations and manufacturing steps are interdependent. Because current competition does not just concern the individual firm but, rather, involves the entire SC.

Christerson and Appelbaum state that most firms which market brand-name labels in apparel do not take part directly in any manufacturing activities, but focus on design, marketing and retailing. Manufacturing operations are mainly outsourced under the direct supervision of the brands or through the third party agents. As denoted by Gereffi, generally the SC is led by large retailers, branded marketers, and branded manufacturers who set up decentralized production networks in a variety of exporting countries. The evolution in fashion industry reformed from the customary supply chain management (SCM), which is apparent in many studies. Because of the extended external network and lack of direct control in manufacturing demand management is challenging. Demand change management (DCM) emerges as an effort of combining marketing with supply process for handling the demand. The approach of combining the demand chain and supply chain management has brought by the academicians at a later stage as a succession of DCM, which is quoted as demand supply chain management (DSCM).

This study focuses on DSCM which is based on a systematic literature review of textile and apparel supply chain and also demand chain management of the forerunner fashion brands. The study is in search of two principle research questions: How the demand-supply is operated by the retail brands which deal with more fashion sensitive and less fashion sensitive apparel products? How to manage and organize the demand supply chain (DSC) based on fashion sensitivity? To clarify these issues, textile-apparel demand and supply management of the DSC is studied through a literature review. The study concerned with the evolution and explanation of DSCM. To understand better the DSCM, present status of the fashion market is studied and also analysed how the market is evaluated among the brands towards quick response settings. To get the picture about the complexity of the fashion supply chain, the textile and apparel processing stages are briefly discussed by dividing the operations from the supply side and demand side. Afterwards, composition of DSC in textile and apparel sector and its consequences are presented.