Dimensions of flexibility in apparel production

Abstract

<p>The purpose of this study was to inductively describe dimensions of flexibility in apparel manufacturing. Using qualitative methods, 38 interviews of apparel production consultants and managers were conducted in a variety of settings throughout the United States and in Honduras. Eighteen apparel production plants were toured. Attendance at two apparel research centers, three apparel production seminars, an apparel research conference, and a major apparel production trade show contributed to the study in the form of knowledge, documents, introductions to informants, and observations of apparel production equipment and techniques. Sales of the referent apparel firms ranged from 2.5 million to over \500 million. All of the informants had experiences with flexibility and had high levels of knowledge about apparel and soft goods production. Through content analysis of data across conceptual categories, a grounded theory of flexibility within apparel firms emerged;Flexibility in apparel production was defined as transitional capacity: the ability to accommodate the variation in quantitative and qualitative demand for apparel products. Apparel producers go through a process of earning transitional capacity that begins with the recognition of demand variation and the need for change. Concomitantly, the identification of adaptive variants, the development of mechanisms to assess risk and determine the value of adaptive variants, and the cultivation of performance measures that support process variation are undertaken;The major barriers to the development of production flexibility were found to be structural, functional, and cognitive. Examples of barriers include bureaucratic inflexibility, incompliance of specialized production processes and equipment, and the mechanistic view of apparel production that has supported the productivity paradigm of the progressive bundle system and its piece-rate incentive assumptions;As producers face profound environmental diversity and demand variation, they have increased their range of products and reduced their cycle times by adaptively using a variety of behavioral techniques: computerized technologies, variation in production processes, professional development of labor, sourcing of materials and products, changing organizational structures, and development of vendor-retailer networks. Producers essentially earn transitional capacity through an intensive process of knowledge acquisition and dramatic changes in the structures, functions, and ways of thinking within their firms.</p>