SPEAKSpeed to Market – The making of an Agile Supply Chain

Category: General

Country: India

Published May 7, 2020.
By Ramesh Gunasekara

What does AGILITY mean?
Agility – “moving quick and easy”,
A word with high relevance across all modern industries especially the textile & apparel industry. 

One may say, its easier said than done. But we cannot deny that it’s the need of the hour for our industry.

Speed to market, is that so cumbersome?
If you ask me, I would say not really…

As we all know holding higher inventory is a burden for every apparel retailer. It affects their cash flow, which in turn affects the balance sheet of the company. If
we find ways to fasten the turnaround time & replenishment cycles, an immediate impact will be seen in the improvement of STR (sell-thru rate).
Evaluating & producing basis what’s selling in the market, we can reduce the burden on inventory holding. It impacts the organisation’s working capital in a big way.

Now, let’s see how we can build a demand-based supply chain keeping AGILITY in mind.
A quick turnaround of raw material lays the foundation of this process.

The main component of apparel is fabric. This can be classified into 3 major categories
1) Piece dyed
2) Printed
3) Yarn-dyed

In order to produce these fabrics in short timelines, the sourcing team should do the groundwork at the development stage itself by defining
· Yarn count – 30s,40s,
· Base qualities – 30sx30s-76×70, 40sx40s-144×72, 40sx40s-120×80
· Shades & print artworks – closing the approvals of lab dips, strike offs, yarn skeins & desk looms excessively than required number of options required to market.
· Keeping the number of colors as less as possible in case of print artwork & yarn-dyed designs would considerably reduce the lead-time.

What else has to be done? 
· Having a win-win partnering (dedicated tie-up) with mills/ garment factories is an important activity in order to succeed in this back-end supply chain integrity. If
anyone is unable to meet the commitments, then they mutually agree to compensate for the loss. This is the success mantra for this partnering.
· Capacity & yarn blocking – to make these quick turnarounds for bulk, we should block 10%-20% capacities of the relevant mills.
· Greige projections – it helps to have the base fabric ready for piece dyed & printed varieties.
· Core colors dyed yarns- Yarn dyed fabrics usually require higher lead time. To reduce the timelines mills may keep the yarns dyes & ready for core colors like white,
black, navy, etc.
· Sharing the approved sign off development counters with respective mills would help in reducing the courier transit time delays when the bulk order must be
processed.
· Having a dedicated logistics tie-up will help reduce the time consumed in material movement.

Teem discussing project at Kanban board
Basis the seasonal launch & trading period, planning team should share inputs like of HITS & misses. Alongside this the quantity details for replenishment orders will fastrack the process.

The ground is set for each function to run fast & makes supply chain AGILE.

Sourcing teams will be enabled to share the order quantities with the mills early. The mill marketing will process the orders by jumping the QUEUE & fabrics can be available as per below timelines.
-Piece dyed- 2 weeks
-Printed- 3 weeks
-Yarn dyed- 4 weeks

Garment conversion lead time- 3-4 weeks
In a nutshell within 5-8 weeks (depending on fabric type & garment styling) from the date of order release, merchandise can reach the market. These may be
replenishment orders or new designs based on sell thru’s. This reduces  the inventory levels considerably.

Choice of vendors & mills is of prime importance. Depending on the quantity a retailer wants to operate with, this deciosn needs yo be made. Volume scalability needs to be kept in mind or else delivering sizable volume will become a challenge.

Note: In order to make “speed to market” viable and successful some requirements are vital.  They are
-A Dedicated team
-Flexibility in approval process
-Free hand in taking decisions in terms of cost vs timeline. (what is important or better gain at a given point of time)
-Transparency across various verticals & stringent follow up.
-Tip of the blog

How to calculate approximate fabric GSM (+ or -5) easily without a cutter & weigh machine- if the specifications are known
1) If the warp & weft count is same, for example: – quality- 40SX40S-144X72
 GSM = ((Epi +Ppi) X 25) / COUNT = ((144+72) X 25) / 40= 135 APPROXIMATELY

2) If the warp & weft count is different for example: – quality – 40SX30S-104X80
 A) Warp = (Epi x 25) / fabric count= (104X25)/40= 65
 B) Weft = (Ppi x 25) / fabric count= (80X25)/30= 66
 C) GSM = A + B= 65+66= 131 APPROXIMATELY

You may check & validate this practically.

Courtesy: https://insideapparel.net/blog/author/ramesh_gunasekaran/

Ramesh Gunasekaran is optimistic & cheerful textile technologist with an experience of 20 years. He is an apparel sourcing head who specialises in strategic sourcing & opportunity buying. He has worked with leading apparel retailers, export buying houses & factories. He is currently the Head-Sourcing for Easybuy-Max retail division @Landmark Group, India He nurtures future talent through his career guidance programs & need based learning sessions.