Decision support system for sample development in the Hong Kong garment industry

In today's garment industry, speed to market is important considering the fast fashion trend. In particular, the efficiency of new product development (NPD) is critical in gaining competitive advantages. The garment industry is material intensive, thus making it more difficult for merchandisers to ensure material availability for sample development compared with other manufacturing industries. Conventionally, when materials with a long lead time affect the sample-making progress, merchandisers formulate action plans based solely on experience. Without any knowledge support for merchandising operations, these merchandisers may fail to make wise decisions, resulting in a long sample development cycle and poor customer satisfaction. The current paper proposes a sample development decision support system to provide knowledge support for sample development. The present study attempts to use rule-based reasoning for determining sample-making operation lead times and material delay times for sample making, followed by case-based reasoning to support the knowledge manipulation involved in sample order processing. After a pilot study in a Hong Kong garment company, the proposed system is found to help accelerate NPD processes by considering both material arrival dates and sample delivery dates to provide merchandisers with suggested guidelines in the sample development process.

[1]  Gert Zülch,et al.  Simulation-supported change process for product customization - A case study in a garment company , 2011, Comput. Ind..

[2]  Graham Pervan,et al.  Eight key issues for the decision support systems discipline , 2008, Decis. Support Syst..

[3]  Eric W.T. Ngai,et al.  Implementing an RFID-based manufacturing process management system: Lessons learned and success factors , 2012 .

[4]  L. Barnes,et al.  Fast fashioning the supply chain: shaping the research agenda , 2006 .

[5]  King Lun Choy,et al.  Real‐time inbound decision support system for enhancing the performance of a food warehouse , 2011 .

[6]  Kamalendu Pal,et al.  An approach to legal reasoning based on a hybrid decision-support system , 1999 .

[7]  Anikó Ekárt,et al.  Hierarchical case-based reasoning to support knitwear design , 2010 .

[8]  Agnar Aamodt,et al.  Case-Based Reasoning: Foundational Issues, Methodological Variations, and System Approaches , 1994, AI Commun..

[9]  Chien-Hsun Chen,et al.  The impact of WTO accession on the Chinese garment industry , 2004 .

[10]  M. Bruce,et al.  Buyer behaviour for fast fashion , 2006 .

[11]  Ren-Jye Dzeng,et al.  Critiquing contractors' scheduling by integrating rule-based and case-based reasoning , 2004 .

[12]  Håkan Torstensson,et al.  Aligning critical success factors to organizational design: A study of Swedish textile and clothing firms , 2011, Bus. Process. Manag. J..

[13]  Itzhak Gilboa,et al.  Rule-Based and Case-Based Reasoning in Housing Prices , 2004 .

[14]  M. Christopher,et al.  CREATING AGILE SUPPLY CHAINS IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY , 2004 .

[15]  Efraim Turban,et al.  Integrating Expert Systems and Decision Support Systems , 1986, MIS Q..

[16]  Andrew W. H. Ip,et al.  A dynamic decision support system to predict the value of customer for new product development , 2011, Decis. Support Syst..

[17]  Piero P. Bonissone,et al.  Integrating case- and rule-based reasoning , 1993, Int. J. Approx. Reason..

[18]  Chun‐sun Leung,et al.  Communications: quick response in clothing merchandising – a study of the buying office using network analyses , 1995 .

[19]  Henry C. W. Lau,et al.  A RFID-case-based sample management system for fashion product development , 2009, Eng. Appl. Artif. Intell..

[20]  Jiyun Li,et al.  Cognitive model based fashion style decision making , 2012, Expert Syst. Appl..

[21]  Keith C. C. Chan,et al.  A new fuzzy approach to improve fashion product development , 2006, Comput. Ind..

[22]  Halime Demirkan,et al.  Integration of reasoning systems in architectural modeling activities , 1998 .

[23]  Anna Corinna Cagliano,et al.  Using system dynamics in warehouse management: a fast‐fashion case study , 2011 .

[24]  Sinem Gunesoglu,et al.  The analysis of personal and delay allowances using work sampling technique in the sewing room of a clothing manufacturer , 2007 .

[25]  Duen-Ren Liu,et al.  Knowledge support for problem-solving in a production process: A hybrid of knowledge discovery and case-based reasoning , 2007, Expert Syst. Appl..

[26]  G. Gereffi.  International trade and industrial upgrading in the apparel commodity chain , 1999 .

[27]  Graham Pervan,et al.  A critical analysis of decision support systems research , 2005, J. Inf. Technol..

[28]  George T. S. Ho,et al.  A hybrid scheduling decision support model for minimizing job tardiness in a make-to-order based mould manufacturing environment , 2011, Expert Syst. Appl..

[29]  Wei-Dong Yu,et al.  Smart case-based indexing in worsted roving process: Combination of rough set and case-based reasoning , 2009, Appl. Math. Comput..

[30]  Melody Y. Kiang,et al.  Reasoning by coordination: an integration of case-based and rule-based reasoning systems , 1993, Knowl. Based Syst..

[31]  M. C. Er,et al.  Decision Support Systems: A summary, problems, and future trends , 1988, Decis. Support Syst..

[32]  Georgios I. Doukidis,et al.  Decision support system concepts in expert systems: An empirical study , 1988, Decis. Support Syst..

[33]  Pavlos Moraitis,et al.  A distributed decision support system for strategic planning , 1997, Decis. Support Syst..

[34]  Sudip Sanyal,et al.  Hybrid approach using case-based reasoning and rule-based reasoning for domain independent clinical decision support in ICU , 2009, Expert Syst. Appl..