There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to managing the flow of goods and services needed to make your business function. How well—or how poorly—you manage those moving parts can make or break your brand in today’s competitive landscape.
While effective supply chain management is crucial for any business, this is particularly true for those of us in the apparel industry. Between fast-changing fashion trends and a limitless variety of products, apparel and fashion retailers often have more complex supply chains than other industries. That’s why it’s important to understand each facet of it in order to manage it properly.
Using the right apparel inventory management software can help you optimize and take control of your supply chain, control costs and manage vendors and deadlines in one place.
How your supply chain is configured is ultimately a function of market demand and inventory considerations. There are essentially three variants:
In a push supply chain model, analysts project demand for your item and push them to retailers based on their predictions. Cold weather apparel begins appearing in stores as warm weather ends and suppliers have been preparing for this increased demand long before it was present.
A pull strategy is one that waits for demand to be present before creating the product, which decreases the cost of holding inventory that may not sell. The risk in this strategy is not being prepared when demand ramps up and not meeting consumer needs.
A compromise between these two is also available. A producer may choose to keep finished products at a distribution center waiting for consumer demand, or a manufacturer may choose to keep a large store of raw materials waiting for the demand for future production.
There are several key challenges facing effective apparel supply chain management. Often, many of these difficulties are relevant only to fashion retailers and are not present in the supply chain for other industries and businesses.
It’s difficult to say exactly what the future holds for the apparel supply chain. Fashion retailers need to figure out new strategies for apparel inventory management, as well as supply chain management.
Retailers will likely continue to look for ways to address those common challenges, incorporate more helpful technology into the process, and address larger issues in the fashion industry, such as sustainability. Meanwhile, consumers are increasingly looking for guilt-free, cruelty-free products. Meeting this demand will be crucial.
As always, it’s important to look for ways to improve the apparel supply chain and make it more efficient, not only for your business, but for the industry as a whole.
What do You Need to Know About Fashion and Apparel Supply Chain Management?
What do You Need to Know About Fashion and Apparel Supply Chain Management?
The handling of the flow of services and goods between locations and businesses is known as supply chain management (SCM). The process might include storing raw materials, movement of finished goods, work-in-process inventory, and end-to-end order fulfillment. The supply chain management process commences with raw components and continues until the final-product customer delivery.
Supply chain management is vital in all sectors; however, it has become much more critical in the fashion and apparel industry. The vast fashion and apparel industry transforms regularly, which makes the competition level high. Thus, only a few startup companies can survive in such a competitive market. The apparel industry is complicated and has three supply chains: pull, push, and push-pull.
The supply chain in the fashion and apparel industry can be broken down into five categories. All the categories impact procedural improvements for managing productivity and designing. Let's know about them in brief.
The first step in the complete process is to plan. Researching and preparing the designs, requirements, raw materials, ancillary materials, ideas, and production method is fundamental. Without proper planning, no industry excels, so before a company starts full-scale production, it needs to look into all the steps and plan accordingly.
Designers play the most critical part in this industry. They make specific designs, choose fabric, trim and fit them, and try to finish the clothing item in a better way. They need to stay updated with the market trends, understand customers' needs, and accordingly produce apparel.
In this complete process, it is also essential to consider aspects such as the quality of the fabric and design as per the season and occasion.
This step involves finding and selecting the appropriate manufacturer to work per the demands. It is also essential to discuss the designs, price, time, and other elements before the confirmation. Many companies prefer in-house manufacturing, so they might also need to go through the step to source raw materials such as fiber, textile mill, and much more.
Once the design is prepared, manufacturing takes place. This step requires a lot of raw materials, spinning, weaving, blending, dying of the clothes, and other materials to produce the final product.
The whole process needs to be looked after by professionals so that nothing goes wrong. It is also vital to have skilled workers for the manufacturing of the product.
After designing and textile manufacturing, the product goes through the step of apparel manufacturing. In this step, the clothing material is cut and then sewed as per the designers' advice. This process turns the fabric into a wearable garment. Fabric cutting, printing, embroidery, sewing, thread trimming, washing, ironing, folding, and packing are all included in this step.
It is the most crucial step, as it inspects the quality of the products that are manufactured. This step ensures everything in terms of quality, from stitching faults to missing buttons and other issues. It can occur any time after the garment is prepared, but ideally before it is delivered to the customer.
The fashion and apparel industry is spread worldwide, and it gets difficult to follow the distribution step. However, supply chain management looks into the complete process and manages it by tracking and optimizing transportation. In this step, the apparel is transported to the key markets. Often, it is sent to the distribution market, but sometimes, it is shipped directly to retailers.
Marketing has transformed significantly in recent times. Unlike the old marketing ideas, sales channels now require more digital engagement. The company must determine the best ways to market its products and improve sales. It can be done through advertising campaigns, adjusting prices, and using other strategies. This ultimately needs analytical market reports, customer approaches, and expectations, according to which the strategies are framed.
After the complete process, it is the time when buyers purchase the items online or directly from the shop. For this, retailers need to focus more on inventory management.
Almost every supplier sticks to the supply chain management process as it delivers more value to the customers. Some of the main objectives of supply chain management are as follows:
Consumers are increasingly more concerned about transparent and sustainable supply chains. Improved supply chain management leads to efficient resource management. Leaders in the logistics chain can examine the raw materials used in their products and work directly with suppliers to implement more sustainable practices. This has significant financial implications since less material is wasted, and manufacturers can cut their energy and water consumption.
The supply chain management process also focuses on the quality of manufactured products. It ensures that the company manufactures excellent products and reduces waste. While the management keeps track of good quality products, customers enjoy and cherish the quality. It builds a good reputation for the company in the market and later affects its overall market and value.
Supply chain management also ensures the optimization of logistics as well as transportation. Improved communication and coordination with all levels of suppliers enable apparel businesses to continue manufacturing goods under all conditions. They are less likely to be affected by supplier delays and widespread raw material shortages. They can immediately learn about possible issues before they have an impact on the market. There can be more easily pivot to new vendors during logistical problems by diversifying their supply networks.
Fashion retailers who collaborate well with a diversified supplier network can cut costs in various ways. Before placing new purchases, they can obtain samples and quotations from multiple vendors. Following that, by accurately estimating demands, shops can order less safety stock. They can place fresh orders based on current demand. This method allows companies to retain enough products on hand to meet customer demand while avoiding overstock at the end of the season.
Every company wants to satisfy its customers. But satisfying the customers might not be easy. The supply chain management tries to provide the best quality service to the customers; it selects appropriate methodologies, systems, and partners to provide exceptional services with transparency that every customer demands. So it's all interlinked. A better supply chain results in better customer experiences, which later result in satisfied customers with increased brand loyalty.
Supply chain management looks after several processes and, thus, aims to improve the whole distribution system. It lets the company handle the task and complete the orders before or on time. The equal distribution of work is done between all the sectors, and the management looks into every step of the process, from raw materials to manufacturing, until it's delivered.
Another essential objective of supply chain management is to create better coordination between various business stakeholders. The management organizes a proper channel for better communication and coordination between suppliers, employees, and customers.
A well-managed supply chain assures a consistent supply of products that arrive in time to fulfil current demands. The fashion and apparel industry is enormous and requires supply chain management support. It helps reduce costs, satisfy customers, provide better distribution and coordination, good quality products, and much more.
At Fashinza you can get information related to fashion, apparel, and marketing techniques. We offer you the tech-enabled manufacturing platform, which supports you to customize the designs with end-to-end production and merchandising support.