A Proposal for Supply-Chain Improvements in a Luxury Company

Abstract

The fashion market is becoming more competitive in the luxury industry, mainly because of the appearance and strengthening of other industries that provide new products more consistently to its customers. This sector, marked by its two annual collections and its unique items, must become more flexible and provide a faster response to its consumer base. In this context, supply chain management is an important factor in determining the degree of competitiveness of a company. This paper proposes tools to assist in the production scheduling of a luxury industry through making its supply chain more flexible by reducing the number of items delivered before the release, thus allowing the company to react according to the sales. To achieve that, an approach to the calculation of orders based on sales forecasts and on the lead time between stores and distribution centers was developed, in addition to a tool to control the delivery of the items through better integration with the suppliers. The proposed approach reduced the number of items in the first two orders by 17% and 12%, and several delays were avoided through the utilization of the order-control tool.