Study on Factors Delaying Lead Time in the Apparel Supply Chain Management: A Case Study on the Order of Execution Strategies of a Garment Factory in Bangladesh

Abstract

Bangladesh garments industry is searching out for ways to reduce lead time during apparel order execution for many rational reasons among which buyer's satisfaction, achieving target shipment date, and building a stable sector are some mentionable motives. One way to abridge lead time is to identify and analyze the root causes to delay in the approval period. Lead time refers to the time in between receiving order and dispatching to buyer. A number of reasons are responsible for delayed lead time. For instance, factory capacity, poor work force, raw material supply, wrong understanding about product details, miscommunication among inter-departments, longer approval period, lack of proper planning, submission of poor quality items, re-work, and re-submissions, etc. Among all of these reasons listed, longer approval period, submission of poor quality materials, re-work, and raw materialsupply hold the utmost importance. This study was based on the investigation of the abovementioned factors that reasonably delay lead time. A compliant garments industry was selected that receives order from a renowned buying office located in Germany. The ultimate customer of that buying office is also located in Germany who operates a number of lucrative stores in several countries in the globe. The study was carried out for an order with a quantity of 73,890 pcs. Results evinced that, due to longer approval period for submitted material (i.e., metal button, first styling sample), up to 24 days’ extension are required to extend for order execution. Besides, submission of poor quality sample and re-work (i.e., print strike-off, size set, and lab dip sample) lead up to 22 days extension. The raw material (i.e., fabric and trims) in-house period also delayed the total period. For the total order shipment, it required 45 days’ extension with respect to the given shipment date.