Highlights Industry 4.0 concept can help enhance operational efficiencies. A supply chain view is a must for achieving industry 4.0 benefits. Organizational and culture integration is needed before supply chain digitization. Industry 4.0 implementation across the supply chain requires a phased approach.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore the applications of postponement strategy in the textile and apparel industry, with a particular focus on the supply chain structure, relationships and enabling activities supporting postponement strategy across the supply chain. Design/methodology/approach -For this research, a case study approach, supported by structured interviews, was adopted. The purpose was to explore the application of postponement with the objective of gathering considerable data from an organization or multiple organizations to develop the clearest possible picture of the phenomenon. Findings -The nature of product, downstream demand and the supply chain structure impacts the choice of postponement strategy. Companies operating with manufacturing and logistics postponement share data across their supply chain extensively, while companies adopting purchasing postponement work towards enhancing suppliers' capabilities and fostering relationships across their supply chains.Research limitations/implications -The case study method limitations include lack of rigor and statistical generalization, small sample size and convenience sampling and lack of establishment of causal relationship. However a thorough study design and process can make case-based research more rigorous and reliable, but caution still needs to be exercised while applying findings on differing scenarios. Originality/value -The case studies depict the application of postponement and the enabling supply chain structures. Previous studies have either looked on the organizational perspective or supply chain perspective with regards to the power and dependence attributes. These cases look at the interaction routines and structures among the supply chains.

Extreme wetting activities of laser-textured metal alloys have received significant interest due to their superior performance in a wide range of commercial applications and fundamental research studies. Fundamentally, extreme wettability of structured metal alloys depends on both the surface structure and surface chemistry. However, compared with the generation of physical topology on the surface, the role of surface chemistry is less explored for the laser texturing processes of metal alloys to tune the wettability. This work introduces a systematic design approach to modify the surface chemistry of laser textured metal alloys to achieve various extreme wettabilities, including superhydrophobicity/superoleophobicity, superhydrophilicity/superoleophilicity, and coexistence of superoleophobicity and superhydrophilicity. Microscale trenches are first created on the aluminum alloy 6061 surfaces by nanosecond pulse laser surface texturing. Subsequently, the textured surface is immersion-treated in several chemical solutions to attach target functional groups on the surface to achieve the final extreme wettability. Anchoring fluorinated groups (−CF2– and −CF3) with very low dispersive and nondispersive surface energy leads to superoleophobicity and superhydrophobicity, resulting in repelling both water and diiodomethane. Attachment of the polar nitrile (CN) group with very high nondispersive and high dispersive surface energy achieves superhydrophilicity and superoleophilicity by drawing water and diiodomethane molecules in the laser-textured capillaries. At last, anchoring fluorinated groups (−CF2– and −CF3) and polar sodium carboxylate (−COONa) together leads to very low dispersive and very high nondispersive surface energy components. It results in the coexistence of superoleophobicity and superhydrophilicity, where the treated surface attracts water but repels diiodomethane.

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