Ten years to create a comprehensive competitiveness of textile and apparel supply chain

Since the reform and opening up 30 years ago, China's textile and clothing industry has achieved rapid development with its excellent manufacturing capabilities and labor advantages, and has grown into a world leader in the production of textiles and garments, a major consumer and exporter. In the past 10 years, with the in-depth development of the industry, it has become an important topic in the industry to increase the added value of the brand and integrate supply chain innovation including creativity, R&D, design, manufacturing, management, marketing, logistics, and services.

Today, the Chinese textile and garment industry has firmly established such a concept: the brand has been upgraded from the competition of “individual to individual” to the competition of “industry chain to the industrial chain”, and has changed from simple “product competition” to the entire industry chain. The system's "Integrated Innovation Competition" has become the conscious behavior of most companies for the supply chain. It can be said that building a competitive supply chain is an inevitable requirement for the development of China's textile and clothing industry.

There are not many countries that integrate brand-centric innovation with the current manufacturing capacity of China's textile and clothing industry. Nevertheless, we are not yet a brand powerhouse, especially the brand-centric whole industry chain innovation system has not yet been established and sound, and this is the only way and key link for China's textile and garment industry “dream of a strong nation”.

In the past, China's textile and garment industry relied on its comparative advantages in cost, supporting advantages in the industrial chain, and advantages in the country's entry into the country, which constituted the core competitiveness of China's textile and clothing industry. At present, the macroeconomic regulation and the dramatic increase in costs have brought about new problems in the development of the industry. The era of cost competition is over. The industry is now facing a shift from cost orientation to value orientation.

Sun Ruizhe, vice chairman of the China Textile Industry Federation, believes that industrial adjustment has brought about an opportunity to increase industrial concentration and integration. China's textile and garment industry should speed up industrial chain integration and innovation to achieve product value enhancement. Integrated innovation is mainly reflected in: quality, innovation, rapid response, environmental protection and social responsibility.

From an industry perspective, since 2000, the industry has not only begun to conduct research on popular trends, but also began to gather a group of outstanding companies. At present, the domestic textile and garment industry has more than 100 excellent bases for product development. At the same time, the industry is actively establishing a trade platform that can be integrated in terms of quality system and social responsibility management system construction.

From a corporate perspective, for example, the Tianzhu Alliance is a company that produces bamboo fiber and a fabric company. The next step will include some clothing brand companies. Together, they will gather around bamboo fiber to meet market demand and favor the market. The product. The products it developed are not limited to traditional towels, bath towels, etc. Now this area has been further expanded and extended to home textiles, clothing and other fields. Sun Ruizhe believes that this is a more successful integrated innovation model.

Fu Guangwei, deputy director of the China Textile Information Center, believes that although China's textile and clothing supply chain has achieved considerable development, there are still problems such as long cycle, poor communication, asymmetric information, and unreasonable resource allocation. There is a bullwhip effect. How to eliminate the bullwhip effect, maximize the benefits of the supply chain, and promote integrated innovation? Fu Guangwei believes that establishing a textile and clothing supply chain alliance and creating a cooperation platform based on supply chain management should be an effective means.

At the 2012 Global Textile and Garment Supply Chain Conference held in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province in June this year, the first branch of the down supply chain of the textile and clothing supply chain was established. Its members include down apparel brands, feather processing, design service providers, and down-advanced surface accessories and down products. Suppliers, etc., will include all aspects of the down feather industry chain, which will benefit the joint development of enterprises and achieve integrated innovation.

Optimizing Supply Chain Management Sun Ruizhe believes that there are certain contradictions in the operation process of the industry chain itself, ie “slow cycle” (Building BTS model--planned production model) and “fast fashion” (downstream BTO model-BuildToOrder, ie The contradiction between single production modes).

As we move further downstream, market demand will have more pronounced effects on the release of their production capacity and orders. Enterprises must organize and arrange production according to their downstream needs, and respond quickly to orders; and the upstream of the industrial chain has an opposite situation. The more you go up, the longer the company needs to organize the production cycle (a typical example is that fashion trends are released 6 months in advance, fabric trends are released 12 months in advance, and yarns are 18 months in advance), therefore, The accuracy of the judgment and grasp of the market by the enterprise will face a considerable test, which requires companies to expect a relatively long-term future, and supply the downstream through the mode of production inventory.

To optimize China's textile and clothing supply chain and allow it to run relatively healthily and stably, Sun Ruizhe said in an interview with reporters that supply chain management must solve four problems.

The first is that brands must change from point-to-point (individual-individual) competition to system-to-system (industry-chain-industry-chain) competition. That is, with the specialization of division of labor, Chinese clothing brands should enter into the "system competition" stage including product production, design, research and development, sales, logistics, information management, and channel construction.

The second is to form a relatively open platform for the relatively closed and simple cooperation between sales and purchase in the past, so that the interests of the entire supply chain can participate in the development of products, the formulation of prices, and integration and innovation.

Third, supply chain management should focus on the transformation from tangible innovation to intangible innovation. In the past, the industry was more concerned with the intrinsic product innovations such as quality and technology.

The fourth is to shift from disorderly competition to orderly competition. In the past, excessive competition in the industry focused on price competition, and there was a phenomenon of vicious competition that disrupted the market order and affected the development of the industry. Therefore, orderly competition is imperative. This includes the protection of intellectual property rights, people-oriented and harmonious labor relations, as well as the harmony of the environment and the harmony of the supply chain.

Sun Ruizhe believes that supply chain management is a symbol of future strength in brand growth. In other words, in the future, the strength of the brand is not how many stores are opened, but it can effectively manage its supply chain, effectively control costs, control quality, control the qualifications of suppliers, provide consumers with confidence and be environmentally friendly. The products, while competing in the market for fair competition, form a virtuous competition mechanism and contribute to regulating market competition.

As a leading enterprise in the domestic garment industry, Youngor has established a supply chain management model with its own characteristics since its establishment more than 30 years ago. According to reports, Youngor's supply chain construction has gone through four stages:

In the first stage, in the 1980s, it expanded its sales and expanded the scale of its corporate assets through horizontal alliances and the establishment of the Beilun Port brand. This stage is mainly to expand the production scale as the core content of the supply chain construction.

In the second phase, the Youngor brand was established in the 1990s, a marketing company was formed, and a nationwide marketing network was initially formed. The company began its transition from processing and manufacturing to production and marketing enterprises. At this stage, it mainly focused on expanding its marketing network.

In the third phase, the completion of the construction of the International Apparel City and the Textile City in the early 21st century controlled the vertical industry chain from the upstream garment manufacturing of textile and apparel fabrics to retail terminals, and formed the core competitiveness of the company.

In the fourth stage, starting from 2009, the company began to implement the strategic transfer from a production marketing company to a brand management company, and established five major brands. The development of the internal industrial chain also integrates from inside and outside, and from the internal company to the internal and external integration of the supply chain.

Since the 1990s, Youngor spent nearly 20 years building a vertical internal supply chain. According to the needs of multi-brand development, Youngor also proposed to build a sustainable supply chain strategy.

Improving Quality Discourse Rights In the supply chain management system, the establishment of a quality standard system has become an important measure to optimize the supply chain. In the process of enhancing the quality discourse of China's textile and apparel industry, the industry has shifted from a “follower” of testing standards to a “facilitator” of the discourse power of China's quality standards. Compared to the monopolization of the textile testing market dominated by foreign inspection agencies in the past, the China Textile Industry Federation Testing Center and the United States AATCC, ASTM, British SDC and other international standards agencies, SDL-ATLAS, JamesH. Heal and other well-known testing instruments and service providers, Austrian Lancang and other international fiber companies established a strategic partnership. Chinese textiles are thus integrated into the trust system of global supply chain management, and the right to speak of quality standards is continuously established.

In 2002, China's popular fabric testing center laboratory was completed in Beijing. In 2005, the then China Textile Industry Association approved the establishment of the China Textile Industry Association Testing Center. Today, the industry already has 11 testing centers, covering the country's important textile industry clusters in Xiqiao, Shanghai, Shengze, Keqiao, Shishi and other places. The industry inspection network was initially established.

Sun Ruizhe said that in the past 10 years, the industry has initially established a testing network and the industry’s visibility has been continuously improved. In the next 10 years, it is necessary to “fine-tune” to create an irreplaceable core competence, realize the multi-function of testing items, computerize detection management, and regularize on-line inspection techniques, and cultivate and train a group of people with higher professional standards and correct values. "Experts" to improve the testing center and industry testing talent "soft power" is a top priority. According to the "Structure of Building a Strong Textile Country," the next 10 years, basic research on textile standards should be strengthened, with emphasis on textile functionalities, ecological standards, new textile materials, high-performance textile standards, industrial textile standards, and the reuse of textile products. Standards, textile color standards, etc.; Another important task is to promote the internationalization of China's textile standards and improve China's discourse power in the global textile industry technology competition.

Social responsibility shaping industry "character"

Sun Ruizhe has said that China's textile and apparel industry's social responsibility in the macro-level of responsibility, stability and optimization of the international supply chain, so that Chinese manufacturing benefit the people of the world. When the company's capital accumulates to a certain extent, the appeal for people-oriented and environmental protection will increase. If you do not want to be abandoned by the industry or even the society, social responsibility construction is imperative. It can be seen that the process of building the supply chain and social responsibility are very necessary. It has always followed the development of the entire supply chain.

Therefore, the industry is highly concerned about social responsibility. In January 2005, Chairman Du Yuzhou of the China Textile Industry Association led a delegation to communicate with European and American retailers and organizations on the issue of social responsibility building. This event was the beginning of the promotion of social responsibility construction in the textile and apparel industry. In May, the China Textile Association’s Social Responsibility Construction Promotion Committee was established in Beijing. At the same time, China’s first standardized social self-regulatory social responsibility management system—China Textile Enterprise Social Responsibility Management System (CSC9000T) General Rules and Regulations was issued. Out of the example of implementing social responsibility from the industry-wide level.

In 2007, China Textile reached significant progress in its social responsibility construction and strategic breakthroughs. Under the premise that the system documentation and implementation tools have become increasingly complete, China Textile has officially started the construction of a team of experts. On May 18, 2007, the China National Textile and Apparel Association and the European Trade Association (FTA) signed a social responsibility construction cooperation agreement in Beijing to reach a consensus on the promotion and practice of corporate social responsibility in the international supply chain, and jointly committed to China-Europe To build responsible supply chain strategic cooperation.

In 2008, China Textile Federation released the first CSR-GATEs outline system; the Association joined the UN Global Compact in the same year and became China's first industrial organization to join the initiative.

In 2009, with the help of China Textile Industry Association, 10 companies in the industry had publicly released a joint social responsibility report for the first time. Until now, every year, companies in the industry have publicly released their social responsibility reports.

Hu Kehua, deputy director of the Social Responsibility Office of the China Textile Industry Federation, believes that social responsibility-driven supply chain management can effectively reduce systemic risks in the supply chain. The management ability of employees determines their production efficiency. Companies can effectively shorten work hours, increase production efficiency, reduce costs, and solve some social responsibility issues in the supply chain through analysis of supply chains, such as process analysis, analysis and improvement of production processes.

Incorporating social responsibility analysis into supply chain analysis, the supply chain is actually more of value management. From the product point of view, we can find a lot of space for management and improvement in the product life cycle from its procurement, R&D, design, and manufacturing. For example, in textiles, from basic fibers to printing and dyeing, to manufacturing, to sewing, the entire process has plenty of room for improvement. During this process, the company's improvement of the technological process, such as how to reduce the number of washing times to save water, reduce the damage to the environment, etc., while also reducing staff hours and improving employee benefits.