Fashion Supply Chain Optimization: A Linear Programming Model

Abstract

Fashion supply chain management is challenging due to demand uncertainty, short product life, fierce global competition, and increasing expectations such as product diversity and keeping pace with the current and emerging trends. In this paper, a brief review of the published works in the field of fashion and clothing supply chain is given and an integrated linear model is presented to minimize a fashion brand’s costs, including production and logistics costs, enabling the firm to make better decisions with regard to its production and replenishment policies and responding in a reasonable time to customers demands for various designed items. We show that our model can successfully account for complex structure of the supply chain consisting of designer, manufacturers, distributors, and stores. The model is validated using the General Algebraic Modelling System (GAMS) with the data collected from an Iranian fashion brand.