Operational Control: Merging Global Operations via an Erp System

The development of global supply chains during the last decade of the twentieth century has had a great impact on the apparel industry. Apparel industry firms face a wide array of challenges relating to the proliferation of product variety, changing product styles, shortened lead times, and reduced prices. As a result of these pressures, apparel companies have been forced to redesign their manufacturing and distribution organizations and to build supporting information systems. These tasks are complicated by the need to support widely dispersed and frequently changing manufacturing organizations while maintaining efficient logistic and inventory systems. At the same time, the apparel company is faced with coping with the cost pressures endemic to the apparel industry. This paper presents a synthesis of the global supply chain concept as it applies to the apparel industry and relates how one company is attempting to use an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to provide the basis for operational control of an increasingly complex operating environment. Copyright 2002 IFAC