Supplier selection in the fashion industry

Abstract

Supplier selection is of particular importance within the field of logistics. It is seen as an essential success factor for every manufacturing company and its entire supply chain network. The choice of the most appropriate supplier can be made by using different processes, which aim to increase the overall benefit, increase customer satisfaction and minimize the product supplier risks. This is also a frequently discussed topic within the fashion industry. The fashion industry is characterized by a constantly changing product range, almost complete dependence on consumers and rising labor costs in emerging countries. Therefore, flexibility and reliability as well as technological conditions play a decisive role in the selection and evaluation of the supplier. Due to the changing preferences of customers new decision-making factors are gaining importance. Besides the economic aspect, the focus is now also on ecological and social aspects. If suppliers do not comply with human rights or ecological standards, this is usually attributed to the company and often causes damage to its image. Therefore, the consideration of environmental and social issues in supplier evaluation plays an important role in the fashion industry. Besides the challenges already mentioned many companies in the fashion industry have found that a supplier who produces cheaply but is far away and difficult to reach has more disadvantages than advantages. Within the last few years, it became clear that for this reason more money had to be spent on quality control, as different standards prevailed in supplier countries. Therefore, they now try to find a balance between local and global procurement and production. In the following paper, this basic information given above will be used to answer the question of which decision-making process for choosing a supplier in the fashion industry leads to the most promising result, taking into account economic, ecological and social goals. In the first step, different processes are presented and analyzed. These processes are SMART and SMARTER, Even Swaps, AHP, MACBETH, MAUT and PROMETHEE, which have been chosen due to their established usage in logistics decision-making. Based on this, a process is selected and implemented. For this purpose, the four stages of supplier selection are carried out: initial supplier qualification, agreement of measurement criteria, obtainment of relevant information and decision.