An Overview of Demand Management through Demand Supply Chain
Read this article researching the challenges in the fashion industry to respond to ever-changing consumer tastes. While reading, think about industries other than fashion where managing production capacity is an ongoing task.
Textile and Apparel Processing
Apparel Processing
Since the production of mechanical sewing machines in the 1850s, sewing apparel products has always been and remains a labour-intensive activity with small capital investment requirements, which allows the industry to spread widely especially in the low-wage areas. Although automation in cutting and sewing is seen in present time, the elimination of physical labour is not significant. Apparel processing is, therefore, manual type operations and consumes a lot of physical and time resource. From the SC point of view, apparel manufacturing is the continuation of the extensive textile processing which consists of a series of operations, including pattern, assortment, fabric handling, cutting, stitching, dry and wet processing, garment dyeing, finishing etc. Undeniably many parties involved in textile-apparel operations which might be from same apparel composite or independently specialize bodies like dry or wet processing companies. There are many sideline actors like chemical and dyestuffs suppliers, accessories suppliers, embellishment service providers, quality testing services etc. play a very important role in apparel manufacturing. Apparel manufacturers play an important role as they are considered as first tier supplier. Buyers often have direct communication with this tier and apparel producers' deal with the rest, e.g. second and third tier. It is not uncommon that an apparel producer sources the raw materials, components and others on behalf of buyers and as per their requirements.
Retailers or distributors are often closely integrated with the apparel
manufacturer; even some of them are vertically integrated. For example,
Christopher alludes that Zara uses its own highly automated
factories and a network of smaller contractors for quick response.
However, Christerson and Appelbaum argue that apparel production
is vertically disintegrated, transactions-intensive, and involves
extremely volatile demand conditions and highly specialized niche
markets. They observe that it operates through subcontracting networks
where the cut fabrics, along with buttons, zippers, or other components,
are delivered to an independent sewing contractor. However, after the
extensive effect of globalization, such segregating activities are not
so common. Although the principal players are often retailers and
apparel companies, each member of the textile-apparel chain has its
valuable contribution, as Chandra and Kumar mention that each
member of the textile SC possesses specialized knowledge about the
textile business. They add that the collaboration is mutual as the
apparel maker acts as a consumer of fabric, while dealing with a textile
manufacturer (a provider of fabric). The long supply pipeline makes the
lead time of the textile-apparel SC relatively long and uncertain in
response to the volatile characteristics of fashion markets. For this reason the growth of cooperation between the actors in
the SC is important for the sake of quick response in order to meet
demand of the present market.