Trends in apparel supply chain management

Supply chain Supply chain consists of all the parties involved directly or indirectly in fulfilling a customers requirement Management of all these parties in order to get maximum efficiency and profit is called SCM Supplier manufactur er retailer whole seller consumer

Key SCM Concepts

Example: P&G supply Chain c Timber manufacturer Paper manufacturer Packaging P&G or other manufacturer Wal-Mart or third party Wal-mart store Chemical manufacturer Plastic producer Consumer

Internal supply chain

Textile value supply chain

Effective Supply Chain When is Supply chain Effective? management of Products Information fund flow

Tool For effective management of information, products and funds there are certain tools which are evolving in SCM: RFID CPRF(Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment") Quick response VMI EDI(Electronic data interchange) VIC(voluntary interindustry commerce standard)

RFID “Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is the use of an object (typically referred to as an RFID tag) applied to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves. Some tags can be read from several meters away and beyond the line of sight of the reader.”

RFID RFID tags contains silicon chips and an antenna that can transmit data to a wireless receiver There fore in RFID there is no requirement to close the product and scanner as like in Barcode scanner can read the product from quite a distance

working Most common method to identify a product using RFID is to store an ID or a serial no that identify a specific product along with other information, on a tag which is a small microchip connect with an antenna Antenna enables the chip to transmit the information contains to a reader Reader convert the information in digital form with the help of a supporting software

Difference between RFID and barcode Barcode are scanned manually and read individually In case of RFID it’s a small object similar to a adhesive sticker which can be easily attached or incorporated with in the product RFID can give the exact location of the particular product which is missing in barcode

RFID Tags Active tags Passive tags

Benefits Improves inventory managements Improve customer service Boosting customer loyalty Product security Exhaustive information about product

VMI----- vendor managed inventory VMI is an integrated approach where the inventory at the distributor or retailer end is monitored by supplier It optimize the supply chain performance in which the manufacturer is responsible for inventory management for their retailer

Model In VMI The manufacturer receives an electronic data regarding sales and inventory of retailer The manufactures can view every item which has been sold or remain in the store and true sales point Under VMI the manufacturer generates the order not the distributor but it does not change the ownership of the product

Benefits to manufacturer Lower inventory investment Better scheduling and planning Better market information Closer customer ties

Benefits to retailer Less stock out with higher inventory turnover Lower administrative replenishment cost Lower inventory cost Less inventory in channels

Benefits to retailer Less stock out with higher inventory turnover Lower administrative replenishment cost Lower inventory cost Less inventory in channels