Quick response in the Australian TCF industry

Abstract

The principal objective of this study is to understand the impact that the adoption of quick response (QR) has had on manufacturing firms in the retail supply chain. The adoption of QR by six organisations within the Victorian textile clothing and footwear industry is used to review the impact that QR is having on the retail sector, especially in terms of the use of EDI as a pipeline accelerator to QR. We also investigate the level of systems integration, organisational affects and inter‐organisational impacts. The results of the research showed that while firms are positively affected by the adoption of QR, and may strengthen their relative competitive positions, retailers are taking the opportunity to shift their holding and distribution costs onto the supply chain to the detriment of both manufacturers and suppliers. Additionally, failure to adopt EDI between downstream trading partners limits the benefits received from QR at the organisational and inter‐organisational levels.

Information and digital technologies of Industry 4.0 and Lean supply chain management: a systematic literature review

“…In general terms, EDI has enabled companies to make faster decisions and bring down waiting times by reducing the time needed to send information, thus contributing to the goal of more efficient supply chains (Mason-Jones and Towill 1997). In particular, EDI has allowed the level of inventory to be brought down and control of replenishment to be had throughout the entire Lean supply chain, which has enabled companies to work with smaller lots and pull system demand management (Abernathy et al 2000;McMichael, MacKay, and Altmann 2000;Danas, Ketikidis, and Roudsari 2002).…”

“…This brings down costs, eliminates errors and wastage, and, therefore, increases supply chain efficiency (Abernathy et al 2000). Standardization also provides a tool to collect real-time demand information and to share this with suppliers/customers, thus producing better coordination between Lean Supply Chain (LSC) members (McMichael, MacKay, and Altmann 2000). For example, the use of these systems was a determinant of the transformation of hospital pharmacy supply chains thanks to the benefits that it provides to merchandise flows and inventory control, and less wastage (Danas, Ketikidis, and Roudsari 2002).…”

“…They have done so by improving customer-supplier relationships by optimizing communications and information flows, thus playing a major role in technology integration of customer and supplier IDT infrastructure (internal/external integration with e-business web technologies) in LSCM(Homer and Thompson 2001;Williamson, Harrison, and Jordan 2004;Adamides et al 2008;Garcia-Sabater, Maheut, and Garcia-Sabater 2012). This customer-supplier integration can be observed in e-commerce(McMichael, MacKay, and Altmann 2000) and the IT-based Kanban systems (e-Kanban)(Wan and Chen 2008) that are another type of web technology for e-business.In addition, e-business web technology adoption has enabled coordination between supply chain members to be improved(Bruun and Mefford 2004;Coleman, Lyons, and Kehoe 2004;So and Sun 2010;So and Sun 2011;Garcia-Sabater, Maheut, and Garcia- Sabater 2012;Kovács and Kot 2017) by significantly reducing waiting times(Iijima, Komatsu, and Katoh 1996;So and Sun 2010;Garcia-Sabater, Maheut, and Garcia- Sabater 2012), inventory levels(Bruun and Mefford 2004;Coleman, Lyons, and Kehoe 2004;Kart, Moser, and Melliar-Smith 2010;Williamson, Harrison, and Jordan 2004;So and Sun 2010;So and Sun 2011) and operating costs(Coleman, Lyons, and Kehoe 2004;Williamson Harrison, and Jordan 2004;Kart, Moser, and Melliar-Smith 2010). It has also enabled flexibility to be increased and reduced the risk of the bullwhip effect(Coleman, Lyons, and Kehoe 2004;So and Sun 2010;So and Sun 2011), thus improving service and, consequently, customer satisfaction(Williamson, Harrison, and Jordan 2004).…”

Innovative Quick Response Programs in Logistics and Supply Chain Management

“…The factors that really make an ER program succeed are upper management's leadership and vision, strong partnerships with customers and suppliers, information technology (IT) that enables information sharing between partners, and a quick manufacturing response time (Blackburn 1991). The above definition indicates that one of the most important parts of an ER program is information sharing, which is traditionally carried out by information technologies such as electronic data interchange (EDI) and barcodes (Mackay and Rosier 1996;Massetti and Zmud 1996;McMichael et al 1997;McMichael et al 2000). The above definition indicates that one of the most important parts of an ER program is information sharing, which is traditionally carried out by information technologies such as electronic data interchange (EDI) and barcodes (Mackay and Rosier 1996;Massetti and Zmud 1996;McMichael et al 1997;McMichael et al 2000).…”

Adapting Zara’s ‘Pronto Moda’ to a value brand retailer

“…Our literature review reveals a lot of research and case studies on leading retailers and some research on hypermarket clothing retailers (Anupindi et al 2006;Gattorna and Walters 1996;Khan, Christopher, and Burnes 2008;Machion et al 2010;McMichael, Mackay, and Altmann 2000;Tokatli 2008). However, the kind of empirical analysis on the value brand retailers reported in this study still seems to be lacking in the literature.…”