Apparel Quick Response System Based on Collaborative Forecasting in Supply and Demand Sub-network

The apparel industry is a fashion industry with short product life and more demand uncertainty. Participants in apparel supply chain bear more risk. To lower the cost and risk for participants in apparel supply chain, a framework for apparel quick response system based on collaborative forecasting was proposed. The prototype of the apparel quick response system was provided, which included three parts: the collaborative forecasting module, the intelligent replenishment module and the intelligent procurement module. The collaborative forecasting method based on sale gene abstraction was put forward to realize quantitative forecasting automatically. And an apparel quick response system was developed based on the proposed prototype, and brought into practice in an apparel manufacture. The procurement management staffs improved their efficiency by 60%, forecast testing was carried out based on 4 weeks sale data using sale data between July and November in 2011 and its accuracy was 66.9%. The system implemented in the apparel OBM proves that the prototype of the apparel quick response system is effective.