Modelling the changing apparel supply chain

Abstract

This paper describes a research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Twenty case‐study companies operating across a range of industrial sectors participated in the project. Sectors chosen for the development of these architectures were those where the use of the traditional manufacturing resource planning (MRPII) model is not the optimum operating solution. In particular, the paper describes the process mapping and analysis approach applied to the study of a sector‐based group of apparel manufacturing companies who collaborated in the research. The planning issues that confront the companies, the control solutions they employ in response to their present commercial environment as they seek to address the changing demands being made of the industry are outlined. A generic planning and control reference architecture developed from the study for the apparel sector is presented.

A Proposal for Supply-Chain Improvements in a Luxury Company

“…Due to the large competition between companies, supply chain management has become essential for an organizations' survival (Slack et al 2007). According to Rollins et al (2003), it is possible to create a general model of a supply chain that can be used as a basis for a more specific model for companies in the same sector. This reference model contains the elements that are common to the sector's operations.…”

Using system dynamics in warehouse management: a fast‐fashion case study

“…As far as centralised distribution is concerned, appropriate sourcing strategies from a variety of suppliers located in low‐cost countries and the procurement of a temporary workforce are crucial elements that increase the system complexity but are important drivers to reach SC competitive advantage (Rollins et al , 2003; Kumar and Samad Arbi, 2008).…”

A Capability Maturity Model to Assess Supply Chain Performance

“…Moreover, most of the ERP solutions have a Material Resource Planning System (MRPII) as their core module. MRPII, on its own, is not necessary for the best planning and scheduling solutions in any enterprise (Rollins et al 2003). The companies that reach best investment returns after implementing ERP solutions are those that had implemented, previously or in parallel, strong continuous improvement programs like Total Quality Management (TQM) or Six Sigma (Miller, 2004).…”

“…Even though general enterprise models were not developed to meet the supply chain needs, it is possible to use their modeling concepts to design a supply chain model for the design of business systems (Rollins et al 2003). These modeling opportunities have been exploited by the S(CM) 2 to provide a meta-model with a cross-disciplinary scope and using common supply chain terminology.…”