The RFId Technology for Monitoring the Supply Chain and for Fighting against Counterfeiting: A Fashion Company Case Study

The purpose of this chapter, after a brief literature review, is to analyse how the RFId technologies applied by an Italian fashion firm, Oscalito, contribute to monitoring the supply chain and are a useful tool to fight against counterfeiting, enhancing the Made in Italy. In the textile sector, characterised by a short and constantly evolving production cycle, the RFId technology has enormous potential. According to Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 on textile fibre names and related labelling and marking of the fibre composition of textile products, consumer protection requires transparent and consistent trade rules, including as regards, indications of origin. When such indications are used, they should enable consumers to be fully aware of the origin of the products they purchase, so as to protect them against fraudulent, inaccurate or misleading claims of origin. In this context, RFId technology has emerged as a valid support for the company not only to monitor the supply chain, especially with reference to inventory management, waste disposal, logistics and transport, but also to protect the Italian origin of production. This study also has some limitations, typical of the applied methodology

On-Shelf Availability (OSA) and firm performance: the moderating effects of lean practices in retail industry

This study addressed the problem of retailers struggling with store operations, which negatively affects customer satisfaction, sales, and overall firm performance. The objective was to investigate the relationship between on shelf availability and firm performance in Malaysian retail small and medium enterprises. The study examined the impact of operational and managerial factors as determinants of on-shelf availability, as well as the moderating effect of lean practice on these relationships. A survey was conducted among retail Small and Medium Enterprises owners in the central region of Peninsular Malaysia, resulting in 151 usable responses. Data analysis was performed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling. The main findings revealed that operational factors had a significant positive effect on firm performance, whereas managerial factors did not show a significant effect. Furthermore, the study demonstrated that lean practice moderated the relationships between operational factors and firm performance, as well as between managerial factors and firm performance. These findings have significant practical implications for retail small and medium enterprises owners, researchers, and policymakers. Retail small and medium enterprises, should invest in efficient operational practices, incorporating lean practices cautiously, emphasizing bottleneck and constraint management to boost firm performance

A new perspective on Workload Control by measuring operating performances through an economic valorization

Workload Control (WLC) is a production planning and control system conceived to reduce queuing times of job-shop systems, and to offer a solution to the lead time syndrome; a critical issue that often bewilders make-to-order manufacturers. Nowadays, advantages of WLC are unanimously acknowledged, but real successful stories are still limited. This paper starts from the lack of a consistent way to assess performance of WLC, an important burden for its acceptance in the industry. As researchers often put more focus on the performance measures that better confirm their hypotheses, many measures, related to different WLC features, have emerged over years. However, this excess of measures may even mislead practitioners, in the evaluation of alternative production planning and control systems. To close this gap, we propose quantifying the main benefit of WLC in economic terms, as this is the easiest, and probably only way, to compare different and even conflicting performance measures. Costs and incomes are identified and used to develop an overall economic measure that can be used to evaluate, or even to fine tune, the operating features of WLC. The quality of our approach is finally demonstrated via simulation, considering the 6-machines job-shop scenario typically adopted as benchmark in technical literature

Monitoring on-shelf availability, out-of-stock and product freshness through RFID in the fresh food supply chain

This paper presents the result of the RFID logistics pilot III (RLP3) project, which has dealt with the deployment of the radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and the development of an IT infrastructure for the management of the real-time data collected in a fresh food supply chain. More specifically, we report the benefits achievable in that supply chain, with a particular focus on the processes of inventory management at the retail store (both in the backroom and in the store area), shelf replenishment from the backroom and store area activities. The supply chain considered during the RLP3 consists of two distribution centres and three retail stores; the project targeted 145 fresh food items, belonging to the dairy and cold cuts categories. The real-time management of data relating to product history, through a specific dashboard, emerged as a promising tool to improve significantly some specific inefficiencies of the retail store, such as product traceability, amount of sales and démarque, out-of-stock occurrence, on-shelf availability and product freshness

Moderating role of lean practices on the relationship between on-shelf availability and retail SMEs performance

Firm performance is a critical issue for Malaysian industries. This includes the retail sector which always strives for on-shelf availability superior performance. The main objective of this study was to examine the relationships between on-shelf availability (OSA) and the SMEs’ performance (FP) of the retail subsector. This empirical research integrated OSA drivers, namely operational (OPS), behavioral (BVL), managerial (MGR) and coordination (CDN). Studies focusing on Malaysian retail SMEs’ performance especially in terms of the determinant effects on FP are scarce. Thus, this study utilized lean practices (LP) as a moderating variable in examining its influence on the determinants and FP. Data were collected from SMEs’ owner-managers in the retail category within the central region of peninsular Malaysia using the cross-sectional study design. The quantitative method was utilized through survey questionnaires. This study adopted stratified sampling and 373 retail SMEs were randomly selected. 151 usable responses were analysed and regressed using the PLS-SEM software. Results of the structural model assessment for direct relationship by PLS-SEM indicated that OPS, BVL and CDN had significant effects on FP. However, MGR did not provide any significant positive effect on FP. The results also showed that LP moderated three relationships, namely OPS-FP, BVL-FP and MGR-FP, but not the CDN-FP relationship. In this study, theoretical contribution was evident by integrating the Constraints and Contingency constructs, where the results were able to extend the body of knowledge in SMEs literature. The results of this study provide important inputs to the owner- managers, researchers and policy-makers to further understand the determinant effects on retail SMEs’ performance and the moderating effect of lean practices. Finally, the study's limitations and future research directions are explored

Shaping the future of cold chain 4.0 through the lenses of digital transition and sustainability

The digitisation of supply chain management lies at the crux of modern industry and similar trends are noticeable in the cold chain (CC) under the cold chain 4.0 (CC 4.0) concept. However, the extant research lacks a systematic summary of existing findings on CC 4.0. Therefore, this study provides a bibliometric and network analysis of 618 high-quality CC 4.0 publications extracted from the Web of Science (WoS). The study uses performance assessment and science mapping to investigate the impact of digital and sustainable technologies in the CC domain. Four main research streams and 19 research propositions are identified to provide an informative overview of the most recent developments in the emerging and growing domain of CC 4.0 and the interface between information systems and operations management. The study further identifies the critical role and impacts of digital-sustainable transformation and presents an agenda for future research focusing on critical theoretical and managerial areas that remain understudied

Fashion Industry

Fashion is a lot more than providing an answer to primary needs. It is a way of communication, of distinction, of proclaiming a unique taste and expressing the belonging to a group. Sometimes to an exclusive group. Currently, the fashion industry is moving towards hyperspace, to a multidimensional world that is springing from the integration of smart textiles and wearable technologies. It is far beyond aesthetics. New properties of smart textiles let designers experiment with astonishing forms and expressions. There are also surprising contrasts and challenges: a new life for natural fibers, sustainable fabrics and dyeing techniques, rediscovered by eco-fashion, and "artificial apparel," made of wearable electronic components. How is this revolution affecting the strategies of the fashion industry

Retail forecasting: research and practice

This paper first introduces the forecasting problems faced by large retailers, from the strategic to the operational, from the store to the competing channels of distribution as sales are aggregated over products to brands to categories and to the company overall. Aggregated forecasting that supports strategic decisions is discussed on three levels: the aggregate retail sales in a market, in a chain, and in a store. Product level forecasts usually relate to operational decisions where the hierarchy of sales data across time, product and the supply chain is examined. Various characteristics and the influential factors which affect product level retail sales are discussed. The data rich environment at lower product hierarchies makes data pooling an often appropriate strategy to improve forecasts, but success depends on the data characteristics and common factors influencing sales and potential demand. Marketing mix and promotions pose an important challenge, both to the researcher and the practicing forecaster. Online review information too adds further complexity so that forecasters potentially face a dimensionality problem of too many variables and too little data. The paper goes on to examine evidence on the alternative methods used to forecast product sales and their comparative forecasting accuracy. Many of the complex methods proposed have provided very little evidence to convince as to their value, which poses further research questions. In contrast, some ambitious econometric methods have been shown to outperform all the simpler alternatives including those used in practice. New product forecasting methods are examined separately where limited evidence is available as to how effective the various approaches are. The paper concludes with some evidence describing company forecasting practice, offering conclusions as to the research gaps but also the barriers to improved practice