Inventory Has Become A "Big Problem" For The Garment Industry.

In recent years, inventory has become

The big problem.

On the one hand, the enterprises that consumers need is not. On the other hand, the consumers of enterprises do not need to stock up in large quantities.

Some media exaggerated that three years without production, clothes can not be sold out.

Famous enterprises such as Smith Barney,

XTEP, Anta, PEAK, from time to time broke the problem of high inventory.

The backlog of Sany's construction equipment is due to the end of the 4 trillion stimulus package and the fall in demand. Clothes are worn by everyone, no matter how big the women's wardrobe is and how many styles they are wearing. What are the clothes and shoes that they worry about everyday? Why don't they know how to satisfy them?

The reason is not that the garment industry is backward, worse than before, but because the business expansion is too fast and the demand is over diversified. The traditional supply chain can not meet the requirements of the business.

This seems to be the common failing of many industries to a certain stage.

For example, more than ten years ago.

Inventory is a big problem. Changhong color TV has to write off billions of inventory, because the production and supply chain system can not keep up with the development of the business under the national and global expansion strategy.

However, after ten years of "missed lessons", the household electrical appliance industry has effectively managed the demand from an uncontrolled "horse race enclosure" to a relatively restrained expansion and growth. On the other hand, the overall supply chain management level of the industry has been further improved, although the inventory problem has emerged from time to time, it is mainly a company case rather than an industry disaster like the clothing industry.

For the clothing industry, especially in the fashion industry, enterprises are aware of the importance of diversification. Many clothing companies are all in line with Zara, and even say that they have 10000 kinds of clothing every year.

However, although their slogan is "fast fashion", their production and supply chain system is not fast, and still remains in the era of economies of scale, with slow response and long response period. The result is a shortage and backlog.

It looks like two different problems. The root is the same: the product adopts differentiation strategy, while the supply chain is not a responsive supply chain, and the two do not match.

Ryui Masa, CEO of UNIQLO, said: "in general, the clothing industry is not a continuous improvement or production of flawless fabrics, but a trend of pursuit", which needs quick response supply chain support.

For Zara, h&m and other widely praised industry benchmarks, its advantage is not so much a product design as a highly responsive supply chain, so that enterprises can quickly follow up the latest trend.

Controlling the variety of clothing and slowing down the speed of expansion can alleviate the pressure of supply chain, but to really solve the problem, we need to start with improving the response speed of the supply chain.

A few months ago, I went to Ningbo to visit Mr. Chen Hongzhao, general manager of Taiping bird dress department.

Mr. Chen is gentle and polite, and his speech is philosophical.

He said this sentence, the main idea is that the variety of women's clothing is the first problem that ladies meet every morning: no matter how big the wardrobe is and how many clothes they have, everyone feels that they don't know what to wear.

The implication is that the characteristics of the industry are that enterprises can selectively serve some needs and give up others. For example, some companies focus on neutral clothing and some cover certain age groups; however, regardless of which field they enter, styles, colors, sizes, fabrics and seasons are all destined to diversify their needs.

The uncertainty of the tide determines that the plan is not as good as the change, and that the quick response of the supply chain is needed to make up for it.

Of course, from the operational point of view, a fabric, a color, a size of clothing is best to do, inventory control is best, but such a company will be closed.

Therefore, the clothing industry, especially the fashion industry, is faced with the problem of diversification. The deep-seated problem is that the production and supply chain lacks flexibility and can not respond quickly to changing demands. The solution is to improve the supply chain's rapid response under the premise of properly controlling product diversification.

Quick response depends on the following three aspects. Accordingly, enterprises should also work together:

First, the basic design of standardization.

Zara although there are tens of thousands of clothing, but its basic design is far from that, differentiation is mainly manifested in color and so on.

Take sweaters for example: Zara will produce considerable quantities.

(basic design), once the best seller of a color is found, the supplier will soon dye the color and distribute it to the global stores in two or three weeks through a quick replenishment system.

This is like in the restaurant industry, some people like to stir fried beans, some people like bacon fried beans, but the basic elements are beans: pre pick, wash, arrange, guests, a few minutes to serve.

From beans to harvested to supermarket, although the whole cycle is three or four months, from spinning to fabric to dyeing cycle is almost the same, but it has no effect on restaurants.

For example, in heavy trucks and large bus industry, the needs of each customer may be different. But in a well run company, the basic vehicle types, especially the chassis base, have standardized design, and control the differentiation to the lowest, so that the delivery cycle can be reduced, and the response speed of the supply chain is raised. These enterprises have more advantages than their competitors.

A lot of clothing enterprises are struggling, one of the fundamental reasons is that there are many styles and lack of common "chassis base". The products differentiated very early in the production process, resulting in the process of differentiated inventory is too high, and the failure activity is the chief culprit of the loss of fast reaction capability of the supply chain.

Second, improve the pparency of supply chain.

It depends on the smooth flow of information in the supply chain.

The different departments within the company and the partners in the supply chain are interlinked. Information flow is the glue that links these links together.

The information is not smooth, the pparency of the supply chain will drop, and there will be gaps between the links, which can only be filled by inventory.

Taking sales and operations as an example, information sharing is not enough and pparency is not good enough to increase the uncertainty of supply chain operation, and the natural response of the supply chain is to increase inventory (a major function of inventory is to deal with uncertainty).

Uncertainty will be pmitted along the supply chain, and will be enlarged step by step. The farther away from the source, the greater the change. Correspondingly, every node in the supply chain will generate a pile of stocks.

As the saying goes, information is changed to stock, and pparency is increased by sharing information, so as to reduce inventory on the supply chain, so that once the demand changes, the enterprise can consume inappropriate stocks and establish suitable stocks faster.

In many garment enterprises, the supply chain operation is like a black hole. The product, demand and supply information are seriously isolated, and the information flow is not smooth. It can not play the role of the nervous system of the supply chain, and it is bound to slow the reaction of the supply chain.

The reason is that there is a lack of appropriate IT solutions (technical problems), except for reluctance to share information.

In Zara, h&m and other top garment enterprises, the supply chain information system has become a competitive weapon. It enhances the pparency of the supply chain, reduces the inventory of the supply chain, and increases the responsiveness of the supply chain.