Today, information technology (IT) plays a vital role in the field of textile industry. Any manufacturing unit uses four Ms, that is, Men, Material, Machine and, of course, Money. To achieve organizational success, managers must focus on synchronizing all of these factors and developing synergies with internal and external organizational operations. With increasing competition, companies are supporting IT to improve their Supply Chain Management (SCM) and use it as a competitive advantage. In short, many textile companies are harnessing technological power to add value to their business.
Supply chain management includes: sourcing, procurement, conversion, and all logistics activities. It seeks to increase the speed of transactions by exchanging data in real time, reducing inventory and increasing sales volume by meeting customer requirements more efficiently and effectively.
Why do textile industries need IT support?
Lack of information on supply and demand aspects
Most of the decisions a manager makes are related to supply and demand issues. But, unfortunately, very few can achieve this, so the decisions that are made carry risks and uncertainty. Excess inventory is one of the most common problems managers face which further results in a long cycle, outdated stock, poor sales, low rates and reduced order visibility and ultimately leads to customer dissatisfaction.
Long acquisition time
In a traditional textile industry, the procurement process takes much longer. Therefore, retailers must forecast demand and identify consumer trends at a much earlier stage. Lack of clarity about the future can result in early stockouts, delays, or overstocking.
Supply chain incompetence
With the need to go global, apparel and textiles face inefficiency hurdles in performing various processes involved from design, sample development, approval, manufacturing and shipping to shipping procedures. payment. The total time spent can extend to a year or even more. If we calculate, the production actually represents only ten to twenty percent of the total time. The rest of the time is spent processing information from one end to the other.
The trajectory of the development of information technology has crossed all the applications of the textile industry. From improving the performance of textile manufacturing and tighter process control, TI has embedded intelligence at every node in the textile supply chain.
Enter world trade
It is a fact that a company that goes global opens with many opportunities and threats in terms of competition, changing trends and other environmental changes. It requires managing all kinds of information efficiently and at a much faster speed.
Information technology interaction with the textile supply chain
Exchange of information
The proper flow of information between members of the supply chain is very important. Such information flow can influence the performance of overall supply chain operations. It includes data on customers and their demand, inventory status, production and promotion plan, shipping schedules, payment details, etc. Bar coding and electronic data interchange are the two information technology tools that can facilitate the integration of information.
Bar coding makes it easy to record detailed data by converting it to electronic format and can be easily shared among members through the EDI system. EDI with its high efficiency is capable of replacing traditional forms of transmission such as telephone, mail and even fax. EDI enables managers to analyze it and apply it in their business decisions. It also helps speed up the order cycle which reduces inventory investment. The EDI-based network enables the Company to maintain rapid response and close relationships with suppliers and customers, which are geographically dispersed. Manufacturers and retailers can even share newly developed designs through CAD / CAM.
Supports planning and execution operations
Planning and coordination are very important issues in supply chain management. The next step after sharing information is planning, which includes joint design and implementation for product introduction, demand forecasting, and replenishment. Members of the supply chain decide their roles and responsibilities, which is coordinated through the IT system.
Various software tools like MRP, MRP-II, APSS facilitate planning and coordination between different functional areas within the organization.
Material Requirement Planning (MRP) – Helps to manage manufacturing processes based on production planning and inventory control system. The proper implementation of MRP ensures the availability of material for production and product for consumption at the right time, optimizes the level of inventory and helps to schedule various activities. The MRP system uses computer databases to store delivery times and order quantity. MRP mainly includes three steps: first assess the requirement of how many units of components are required to produce a final product; Here you apply the logic to implement Bill of Materials (BOM) explosions. The second step includes deducting the available stock from the gross to find the net requirement. Finally, schedule manufacturing activities so that finished products are available when needed, assuming delivery time.
The Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII) system is a logical extension of the MRP system that covers the entire manufacturing function. Typically this includes machine loading, scheduling, feedback, and software extension programs, as well as planning for material requirements. It provides the mechanism for evaluating the feasibility of a production program under a given set of constraints.
A textile company that has multipoint manufacturing and is engaged in global business needs more than MRP and MRP-II as Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP), has the ability to solve both capacity and material constraints and propagates quickly the effects of problems both backwards and backwards. direction of advance along the supply chain.
The Advance Planning and Scheduling (APSS) system includes both the material approach of MRP and the rapid-response scheduling power of MRP-II.
Coordination of logistics flows
Workflow coordination can include activities such as procurement, order fulfillment, change implementation, design optimization, and financial trade-offs that translate into cost and time efficiency. The results are profitable, fast and reliable supply chain operations.
Information technology helps maximize the value of the textile supply chain by integrating supply chain operations inside and outside the organization and collaborating supplier and customer actions based on shared forecasts. The Internet adds to IT’s contribution to supply chain management through the coordination, integration, and even automation of critical business processes. A new system of the supply chain game emerges as a result of Internet-driven business innovation.
Many supplier companies maintain demand data by style, size, fabric, and color to replenish inventory at the retail point of sale. The replenishment level is predetermined by both parties after reviewing the sales history by product and the buying behavior of the community.
New business models:
Data mining and data warehousing
Data mining is the process of analyzing data from different points of view and summarizing it into useful information that can be used as a basis for monitoring and control, allowing companies to focus on the most important aspects of their business. It allows users to analyze data from many different dimensions, categorize it, and summarize the identified relationships. In short, it is the process of finding correlations or relationships between dozens of fields in large relational databases.
Data warehousing is the repository of data and can be defined as a centralized data management and retrieval process. Data centralization maximizes user access and analysis.
E-commerce
E-commerce can be B2B (Business To Business) and B2C (Business To Customer). B2C commerce is direct sales to consumers over the Internet. While the B2B marketplace can be defined as neutral internet-based intermediaries that focus on specific business processes, host electronic marketplaces, and use various market-making mechanisms to mediate business-to-business transactions. B2B appears to be more forward-looking than B2C.
E-commerce
The textile retail giants are adding an internet shopping component to their offering. It has affected your distribution and storage infrastructure. As a result of going online, retailers have changed their supply chain strategy. High-volume products with stable demand are stored in local stores, while low-volume products are centrally stored for online purchase.
Businesses prefer a direct route to consumers by closely analyzing the tastes, preferences, habits, and purchasing patterns of individual customers. Instead of waiting for consumers to visit their stores, retailers simply email them with offers. The Internet has provided a rapid response system. With the use of web-enabled technology, it is possible to have an automatic customer replenishment system.
