The importance of supply chain and operations management as a source of competitive
advantage is well documented in business literature (Kumar and Nambirajan, 2013;
Cheng et al., 2014; and Lyons and Ma’aram, 2014). To achieve competitive advantage,
process functions have to be agile, adaptive and aligned (Lee, 2004). This is termed as
responsiveness (Squire et al., 2009). Whether a chain can be responsive depends to a
great extent on the level of coordination among the chain members and operations
processes and vice versa. A coordinated chain leads to improved operations and chain
performance (da Silveria and Arkader, 2007).
The Indian garment industry (alternatively known as textile and apparel industry)
caters to the need of 1.27 billion population (www.indiaonlinepages.com/population/
india-current-population.html accessed on May 29, 2014) through supply of varied
types of dress material—from daily use to fashion-wear. The supply chain of this industry
comprises raw material manufacturers, fabric spinning, fabric dealers, manufacturers
of dresses, wholesalers and retailers of the dresses (Chandra, 2006; and Ramesh and
Bahinipati, 2011). Different types of garments have different demand patterns and
demand duration cycle. Like any other supply chain, the activities or processes of this
chain are undertaken by independent players. These activities need to be coordinated
to achieve chain goal.
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