PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the agile supply chain management practices adopted by UK clothing retailers in order to effectively manage the supply of innovative, high‐margin, high‐fashion content product offerings in a complex global environment.Design/methodology/approachA case study approach was adopted examining the whole of the global retail fashion supply chain, from typical UK‐based retailers through to their main production and logistics suppliers based in two low‐cost locations, China and Romania. The cases of the UK retailers were followed by a study tour of China and Romania, where ten cases of fabric and finishing manufacturers, intermediaries and logistic providers were carried out.FindingsMany aspects of accepted risk management and agile practice, such as market sensitivity, postponement activities and collaborative information‐sharing partnerships were apparent in the early product definition and the later product delivery stages of the supply chain. However, the responsibility for supply, including the key aspect of managing the complex supply network, was almost exclusively left to intermediaries located in low‐cost countries. These intermediaries in the main could best achieve agile supply from a significantly underutilized low‐cost country supply network through a traditional adversarial price and lead time auction sourcing process.Research limitations/implicationsWhile the cases considered reflected what seemed to be a typical and widely adopted approach to managing such a supply chain, this may not, of course, be the only approach taken by organisations in the clothing industry.Originality/valueBy examining a whole supply chain associated with agile supply in an important sector, the paper identifies the relative importance of some existing practices and brings into sharper focus those most relevant to this type of supply. The paper also identifies key elements of contemporary supply chain management practice, namely the growing use of global supply for innovative products and the essential and valuable role played by intermediaries in such supply chains.

Higher education and more specifically University education is being called to account more and more. It follows therefore that the Universities must present information on the quality of service which they provide as perceived by their customers and their supporters who supply their funding. The author would wish to'gratefully acknowledge the cooperation and assistance of his supervisors Professor Ron Masson, BiH Low, and Graham Martin, for their help and advice: Jack Worden Dean of Business School Napier University, lecturers, fel. low students in particular David White from the Mathematics and Statistics Department, and other staff at Napier University for their ongoing support and encouragement throughout the long period of this research. Fina. Hy I would wish to acknowledge the support given by my wife during the darkest moments of this research.

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The work comprises a new theoretical development applied to aid decision making in an increasingly important commercial sector. Agile supply, where small volumes of high margin, short life cycle innovative products are offered, is increasingly carried out through a complex global supply chain network. We outline an equilibrium solution in such a supply chain network, which works through limited cooperation and coordination along edges (links) in the network.The links constitute the stochastic modelling entities rather than the nodes of the network. We utilise newly developed phase plane analysis to identify, model and predict characteristic behaviour in supply chain networks. The phase plane charts profile the flow of inventory and identify out of control conditions. They maintain quality within the network, as well as intelligently track the way the network evolves in conditions of changing variability. The methodology is essentially distribution free, relying as it does on the study of forecasting errors, and can be used to examine contractual details as well as strategic and game theoretical concepts between decision-making components (agents) of a network. We illustrate with typical data drawn from supply chain agile fashion products.

User‐vendor relationships are examined in a sector of the electronics industry where the manufacturing process is sensitive to the performance of vendors in terms of price, quality and delivery. Two similar user companies with different vendor management approaches are considered and the effects these have on vendor performance and the subsequent results for aspects of the companies' performance examined. Vendors supplying both companies were interviewed on the rationale of their behaviour towards the companies. It is shown how, for this type of manufacturing process, forgoing short‐term price opportunities by developing long‐term relationships with vendors can lead to greater overall benefits for the manufacturing process.

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