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Textile and apparel supply chain management in Hong Kong

Article  in  International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology · July 2006

DOI: 10.1108/09556220610668491

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Apparel supply
Textile and apparel supply chain chain
management in Hong Kong management
Jimmy K.C. Lam
Institute of Textiles and Clothing, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 265
Hunghom, Hong Kong, and
R. Postle Received October 2004
Revised March 2006
Department of Textile, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Accepted March 2006

Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to review the concept of supply chain management. The typical problems
facing with textile and apparel supply chain are short product cycle for fashion articles, long
production lead-time and forecasting errors for fashion items. The Hong Kong textile and apparel
supply chain faces additional problems of distance from customers in the US and European markets,
long production lead-times and minimum batch sizes for production, and, recently, elimination of
quota restriction in the US market, all of which force them to improve efficiency and enhance
competitiveness through supply chain management. Seeks also to provide a selective bibliography for
industrial practitioners with sources which can help them develop their supply chain strategies for the
fashion market in Hong Kong.
Design/methodology/approach – A range of recent published (1993-2005) works, which aim to
provide practical advice are critiqued to aid the individual practitioner to manage its supply chain
strategies in Hong Kong. These sources are sorted into sections: supply chain management in
Hong Kong, textile and apparel supply chain management in Hong Kong, and problems faced by small
and medium-sized enterprises for textile and apparel supply chain.
Findings – The differentiation of product demands into functional and innovative products helps the
supply chain company to employ different supply chain strategies for different products, namely
responsive supply chain strategy for innovative products and efficiency supply chain strategy for
functional products. These two supply chain strategies are focused on the downstream supply chain
aiming at shortening the time to research the market and also to reduce the stock levels in the retailing
industry.
Research limitations/implications – This is not an exhaustive list and cases are mainly from the
Hong Kong textile and apparel industry, which perhaps limits its usefulness elsewhere.
Practical implications – A very useful source of information and impartial advice for industrial
practitioners to develop their own supply chain strategies for the fashion market in Hong Kong.
Especially recently with the elimination of quota to the US market, the management of the supply
chain is critical.
Originality/value – This paper fulfils an identified information/resources need and offers practical
help to industrial practitioners on then supply chain management for the Hong Kong textile and
apparel industry.
Keywords Supply chain management, Textile industry, Hong Kong
Paper type General review
International Journal of Clothing
1. Introduction Science and Technology
Vol. 18 No. 4, 2006
In recent years, “world class” organizations purchase products, move and market goods pp. 265-277
and services on a global basis in order to meet customers’ needs on a timely basis, with q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0955-6222
relevant and high quality products produced and delivered in a cost effective manner. DOI 10.1108/09556220610668491
IJCST To achieve this goal, the concept of supply chain management (Cox et al., 1995) has
18,4 proven to be of vital importance especially for the Hong Kong textile and garment
industries. Hong Kong has become an important sourcing and control centre for the
global garment industry with production plants in China, Indonesia, Thailand and India
(Hong Kong Government Industry Department, 1995).
Although billions of dollars of apparel business are conducted in Hong Kong,
266 relatively little knowledge about the management of supply chains is reported in
published research. The technologies of electronic data interchange (EDI), flexible
manufacturing, automated warehousing and rapid logistics appear to achieve little
improvement in the supply chain management (Fisher, 1997). New management
concepts such as quick response, efficient consumer response, mass customization,
lean manufacturing again fail to deliver the cost saving and performance
improvements in the supply chain (Fisher, 1997).

2. Supply chain management

Companies have traditionally viewed themselves as entities that exist independently
and have to compete against each other in order to survive. However, such mindset
cannot be sustained as no organization can operate alone in complete independence.
Firms are finding that they can no longer compete effectively in isolation of their
suppliers or other entities in the supply chain and are realizing the benefits of
collaborative relationships within and beyond their own organization (Cox et al., 1995).
The concept of the supply chain and its management are attracting increasing
attention on behalf of both academic and industrial practitioners.

2.1 Definition of supply chain management

Various definitions of a supply chain have been offered in recent years as the concept
has gained popularity. The APIC dictionary (Cox et al., 1995) describes the supply
chain as:
.
the process from the initial raw materials to the ultimate consumption of the
finished product linking across supplier-user companies; and
.
the functions within and outside a company that enable the value chain to make
products and provide services to the customers.

The Supply Chain Council (1997) uses the definition:

The supply chain – a term increasingly used by logistics professionals – encompasses every
effort involved in producing and delivering a final product, from the supplier’s supplier to the
customer’s customer. Four basic processes – plan, source, make, deliver – broadly define
these efforts, which include managing supply and demand, sourcing raw materials and parts,
manufacturing and assembly, warehousing and inventory tracking, order entry and order
management, distribution across all channels and delivery to the customers.
Quinn (1997) defines the supply chain as:
. . . all of those activities associated with moving goods from the raw materials stage through
to the end-user. This includes sourcing and procurement, production scheduling, order
processing, inventory management, transportation, warehousing and customer services.
Importantly, it also embodies the information systems so necessary to monitor all of those
activities.
In addition to defining the supply chain, several authors have further defined the Apparel supply
concept of supply chain management. As defined by Ellram and Copper (1993), supply chain
chain management is “an integrating philosophy to manage the total flow of a
distribution channel from supplier to ultimate customer”. Monczka and Morgan (1997) management
state that:
. . . integrated supply chain is about going from the external customer and then managing all
the processes that are needed to provide the customer with value in a horizontal way. 267
They believe that supply chains, not firms, compete and that those who will be the
strongest competitors are those that:
. . . can provide management and leadership to the fully integrated supply chain including
external customer as well as prime suppliers, their suppliers, and their supplier’ suppliers.
From these definitions, a summary definition of the supply chain can be stated as:
All the activities involved in delivering a product from raw material through to the customer
including sourcing raw materials and parts, manufacturing and assembly, warehousing and
inventory tracking, order entry and order management, distribution across all channels,
delivery to the customer and the information systems necessary to monitor all of these
activities.
Supply chain management coordinates and integrates all of these activities into a
seamless process. It links all of the partners in the chain including departments within
an organization and external partners including suppliers, carriers, third-party
companies and information systems providers.
Recently, a new type of supply chain is emerging in the industry, namely the
late design responsive supply chain (Macedo, 2005). This supply chain combines
the traditional supply chain and agile design-responsive supply chain together to
eliminate product inventories and delivery times for fashion market.

2.2 Supply chain management in Hong Kong

Two local supply chain management studies have been conducted in Hong Kong.
The first study titled “Supply Chain Management, linkage to total industry benefits”
was initiated by HKANA (1996) and commissioned by Coopers & Lybrand Consultants
to access the impact of supply chain management on the domestic industry. The
second study titled “Supply Chain Management in Global Trade” was again initiated
by HKANA (1997) and commissioned by Kurt Salmon Associates to access the supply
chain management for export industry.
The first report identified the bottleneck to the implementation of supply chains
in Hong Kong in terms of technology, information sharing, training and skill in
understanding the supply chain management concept.
Figure 1 shows that “no information sharing” is the major barrier to the
implementation of supply chain management in Hong Kong. This may be due to
the lack of trust amongst the trading partners and/or the lack of knowledge about the
benefits of supply chain management. This issue was reported again by Borneman
(2005) on his study in textile industry in US.
Figure 2 shows that the awareness of supply chain management in Hong Kong
is very low. Only 4 per cent of those surveyed indicated that they were “quite
knowledgeable” about supply chain management. About 27 per cent of those surveyed
IJCST showed had “heard the term, but that’s all” and over 52 per cent mentioned that they
18,4 had “never heard of it”.
The low awareness of the supply chain management concept in the industry makes
it difficult to share information amongst trading partners.
The first report also benchmarked the supply chain performance of the Hong Kong
manufacturers and retailers to the world average. Both are below the world average
268 with the retailer supply chain performing slightly better than the manufacturer supply
chain. As a result of this first Hong Kong report, the supply chain management
resource centre was established by HKANA in 1998 to provide training and to increase
the awareness of supply chain management for the Hong Kong industry.
The second Hong Kong report by Kurt Salmon Associates (HKANA, 1997)
identified that by implementation of supply chain management practices, Hong Kong’s
export industries would save up to HK$9.2 billion (Australian $2.1 billion) on logistics
and administration costs. The consultants concluded that the route for Hong Kong to
excellence is to become the supply chain management thought-leader in global trade.
The consultants further suggested that speed sourcing and replenishment are two
key factors for Hong Kong to succeed in global supply chain management (HKANA,
1997).
The two Hong Kong reports clearly show how important supply chain management
is to the Hong Kong domestic and export industry. These reports indicate that the
supply chain management practices in the Hong Kong industry are far below the world
average.

Figure 1.
Barriers to the
implementation of SCM in
Hong Kong

Figure 2.
Awareness of SCM in
Hong Kong
3. Textile and apparel supply chain management in Hong Kong Apparel supply
Although the two consultant reports show that Hong Kong industry in general is not
well prepared for the supply chain management, the textile and apparel industry in
chain
Hong Kong, however, is quite different. management
A report on the techno-economic and market research study on Hong Kong’s textile,
clothing and footwear industries (Trade and Industry Department, Hong Kong
Government, 2000) shows that some supply chain management is already being 269
undertaken by large enterprises in Hong Kong in response to demand from their
buyers for supply chain co-ordination. The tactics includes: integration of supply chain
through vendor partnership; streaming of supply chain through elimination of
intermediaries; and focussing on core competency to gain competitive advantage, as
shown in the following three examples.

3.1 Supply chain backward integration

Fountain Set (Trade and Industry Department, Hong Kong Government, 2000) which is
a major Hong Kong knitted fabric manufacturer, entered into agreements with several
cotton yarn spinning mills in the Mainland of China to enhance control over the supply
and quality of raw material. The manufacturer can reduce order lead-time as well as
inventory levels. On the other hand, the spinning mills can receive a transfer of
advanced production know-how to enhance their production efficiency.

3.2 Supply chain forward integration

Textile Apparel Limited (TAL) (Trade and Industry Department, Hong Kong
Government, 2000) is the major shirt manufacturer for the US market. It has partnered
with J.C. Penney to monitor the weekly stock level of all its retail chain outlets and
through its “SPEED” program, shirts can be manufactured and shipped to US within
48 h.
Yue Yuen which is a Hong Kong-listed footwear manufacturer, has assisted Nike to
source cheap but reliable raw material, manage inventories and deliver products,
through a just-in-time system (Wall Street Journal, 2000).

3.3 Supply chain virtual integration

As the biggest trading firm in Hong Kong, Li & Fung provides a “one-stop-shop” for its
customers from product development, raw material sourcing, production planning and
management, quality assurance, export documentation to shipping consolidation.
As Li (Magretta, 1998) said:
The policy of not owning any production facilities keeps the supply chain flexible and
adaptable; encouraging the constant search for quality-conscious, cost-effective producers
that can deliver to a deadline.
Li & Fung (Magretta, 1998) has been a pioneer in “dispersed manufacturing”.
It performs the higher-value-added tasks such as design and quality control in
Hong Kong and out sources the lower-value-added tasks to the best possible locations
around the world. The result is a truly global product. To produce a garment, for
example, the company might purchase yarn from Korea that will be woven and dyed in
Taiwan, then shipped to Thailand for final assembly, where it will be matched with
zippers from a Japanese company. For every order, the goal is to customize the value
chain to meet the customer’s specific needs.
IJCST 3.3.1 Problems face by small and medium size enterprises for textile and apparel
supply chain. Despite the success of the enterprises that have adopted the supply chain
18,4 management concept in the textile and apparel industry, the industry members on the
whole are still relatively small in order to take full advantage of the new concept.
The success stories mentioned previously all involve large enterprises in Hong Kong.
They are either the biggest trader (Li & Fung to 7,500 network producers) or the
270 biggest manufacturer (TAL to J.C. Penny chain stores) or the biggest customer to
suppliers (Fountain Set to China yarn suppliers) in the supply chain.
However, most of the manufacturers in Hong Kong are small to medium scale and
they lack the resources and bargaining power (unlike the big enterprises) in the supply
chain. The findings from Hunter and Valention (1995) on the low success rate of quick
response after a ten year period in US, may explain some problems facing supply chain
management in the textile and apparel industry.
Four problems were identified by Hunter and Valention (1995) on the failure of quick
response in the apparel industry in USA. The following four problems were identified:
(1) Too high expectations on behalf of the management from the program and the
slow pace of changes in management practices and corporate culture.
(2) Adversarial relationships between sectors change readily so partnerships do
not remain:
The major problem is that increase in profits coming from the practice of
quick response goes to the retailer, while the up-stream participants take on
most of the cost burden. Without some sharing of the benefits as well as the
costs, partnerships are unlikely to develop.
(3) The structural difference of the textile/apparel pipeline in industry:
In sharp contrast to the automobile, appliance and electronic businesses,
where the fabricator of the end-product dominates the smaller-parts suppliers
and distributors, the apparel manufacturer is typically small with little
influence over either the textile supplier or retailer.
(4) The technical problems of standardization, communication and data accuracy
in the industry:
Although EDI has been used in industry for decades as a data exchange between
different systems, no standard EDI format has been developed. Different vendors
have their own EDI format and thus make the communication and data mapping
difficult. The same is true for product identification and article numbering. It has
been estimated that up to 70 per cent of EDI transactions, including barcodes,
contain wrong or incomplete information (Hunter and Valention, 1995).
The Hong Kong textile and apparel supply chain is faced with the similar situation to
that described by Hunter and Valention (1995). Most garment manufacturers are small
to medium scale not having the resources and power to negotiate with big players in
the supply chain. An interview with one of the Hong Kong medium size sweater
manufacturers (Ho, 2001) found that the company has to deploy three different EDI
systems for its US buyers for its order and production monitoring system in the supply
chain. In addition, since most of the sweater production is carried out in China and
Bangladesh, the management must ensure that the three systems would work properly
in a remote and under-developed area.
 The elimination of quota restrictions to US market imposes another problem in the Apparel supply
supply chain management. Major findings of the study “Opportunities and Challenges chain
as the Garment Quota System Ends” conducted by Hong Kong Productivity Council
(Chow, 2005) shows that 90 per cent of the interviewed manufacturers cut their price up management
to 25 per cent in the first half 2005. About 62 per cent of the total respondents agreed that
US/EC customers tended to purchase more because of lower prices in the absence of
quota cost. To improve the competition, 69 per cent of the respondents agreed to improve 271
the efficiency and enhance competitiveness through supply chain management.
3.3.2 Fashion demand efficiency and responsive supply chain management
Besides the technology and management issues in the supply chain, Fisher (1997)
found that most companies failed in their supply chain management because of their
mismatch between supply chain strategy and the nature of demand for their products.
Based on the demand pattern, Fisher divided products into two categories in the
supply chain: either primarily functional or primarily innovative.
Functional products such as those obtained from grocery stores or patrol stations,
normally do not change quickly with time; they have a stable and predictable demand
and a long life cycle. However, their stability invites competition, which often leads to
low profit margins.
Innovative products like fashion apparel or personal computers, can enable
companies to achieve higher profit margins. However, the very newness of innovative
products makes demand unpredictable. In addition, their life cycle is short, usually just
a few months, because as imitators erode the competition advantage that innovative
product enjoy, companies are forced to introduce a steady stream of newer innovations.
The short life cycles and the greater variety which are typical of these products further
increase unpredictability.
Table I shows the demand nature for functional and innovative products in the
supply chain.
With their high profit margins and volatile demand, innovative products require a
fundamentally different supply chain than do stable, low-margin functional products.
Fisher (1997) suggests that an efficiency supply chain strategy with focus on cost
minimization should be used for functional products. A responsive supply chain
strategy with focus on products availability, matching the marketplace with customer
demands, should be used for innovative products. The failure of supply chain
management is often due to mismatch between supply chain strategy and the nature
of product demand.

Functional Innovative

Aspect of demand Predictable demand Unpredictable demand

Product life cycle More than 2 years 3 months to 1 year
Contribution margin (per cent) 5-20 20-60
Product variety Low (10-20 variants High (often millions of
per catalogue) variants per catalogue) Table I.
Average forecast error (per cent) 10 40-100 Demand for functional
Average stock out rate (per cent) 1-2 10-40 versus innovative
Average season markdown (per cent) 0 10-25 products in the supply
Lead-time required for made-to-order products 6 months to 1 year 1 day to 2 weeks chain
IJCST Table II shows the two different supply chain strategies used for functional and
18,4 innovative products. As can be seen, the primary focus of the efficiency supply chain
strategy is to minimize the overall production cost. The responsive supply chain
strategy focuses on the maximum product availability to market, reduced stock out
and forced markdowns.
The problem with these two strategies is that the same product, for example apparel
272 goods, can be both functional and innovative. A fashion garment in the early
introduction stage can be an innovative product. However, at the end of the product life
cycle, it becomes a functional product. It is therefore difficult for the companies to
judge whether they should use responsive or efficiency supply chain strategies for each
product in different stages of the life cycle. Nevertheless, Fisher provides a framework
for the management to match the nature of the product with the supply chain strategy.
Another problem with the textile and apparel supply chain is the product forecast
and short life cycle for fashion and apparel goods. A fashion garment, by definition, is
changing all the time and therefore, it is highly volatile and unpredictable. The
challenge in managing the supply chain for fashion articles is to ensure product
availability while keeping product obsolescence low. The ability to respond to market
signals and to develop accurate demand forecasts (and to update them based on
current information) is critical.
Fisher and Raman (1994) developed an accurate response for women’s apparel sold
by catalogue using the early sales data as an accurate predictor of life-cycle demand.
He found that conventional forecasting based on a team of expert merchants has an
average forecast error of 55 per cent. However, using the early sales data of the first
two weeks of demand, the life-cycle forecasts for the same products developed by
simple extrapolation can improve the average forecasting error by 8 per cent (Figure 3).
Fisher and Raman (1994) also found out that if the committee has a strong
agreement on the forecast, the forecast error would be reduced. Conversely, if the
committee has a low agreement on the forecast, the error of forecasting would increase
(Figure 4). This technique would improve the forecast error for high fashion articles
and make the supply chain more responsive to the market demand.
3.3.3 Upstream supply chain management problems faced by Hong Kong textile and
apparel industries. Considering the problems of the Hong Kong textile and apparel

Efficiency supply chain process Responsive supply chain process

Primary purpose Supply predictable, demand efficiently Respond quickly to unpredictable

at the lowest cost demand to minimum stock out and
forced markdowns
Manufacturing Maintain high average utilization rate Deploy excess buffer capacity
focus
Inventory Generate high turns and minimize Deploy significant buffer stocks of
strategy inventory throughout the chain parts or finished goods
Lead-time focus Shorten lead-time as long as it does not Invest aggressively in ways to reduce
increase cost lead-time
Table II. Approach to Primary on cost and quality Primary on speed, flexibility and
Efficiency supply chain suppliers quality
and responsive supply Product design Maximum performance and minimize Use modular design in order to
chain processes strategy cost postpone product differentiation
 Apparel supply
chain
management

273

Figure 3.
Accurate response to
market signals

Figure 4.
Forecast error and degree
of agreement amongst the
committee

supply chain, most garments produced in Hong Kong are intended for export and large
amounts of the required materials are imported. Managing the international logistics
therefore is crucial for the Hong Kong clothing industry.
Moon (1999) surveyed 105 clothing manufacturing firms in Hong Kong with
25 companies for in-depth interview to understand the supply logistics for Hong Kong
garment manufacturers. Results show that the overall logistics cost for in-coming
fabrics, expressed as a percentage of total fabric cost, ranges from 1.5 to 8 per cent,
with an average value of 3.7 per cent. Transportation consumes over 95 per cent of the
overall logistics cost.
Most surveyed firms, however, consider that the logistics are not important in their
supply chain. This finding is rather contradictory to conventional thinking in the
supply chain. Moon (1999) concluded that the Hong Kong clothing manufacturers like
IJCST to focus on their core business function, for example sourcing, production, marketing,
18,4 which are always regarded as the determinants of the firm’s existence. The clothing
manufacturers therefore spent less effort on supply-side logistics and were not aware
of the importance of developing logistics excellence in honing their competitive edge.
Hong Kong has long been regarded as an important sourcing centre for clothing
production in the Far East for the world market. Leung (1999) therefore, studied the
274 Hong Kong textile and apparel supply chain from the supplier viewpoint. By analysis
of the case study of a skiwear supply chain in Hong Kong (Hammond and Raman,
1995), Leung (1999) found that two reasons to limit the flexibility of the supply chain in
Hong Kong were long production lead-time and large batch requirements for
production, as shown in Table III.
Leung found that the key issues that constrain the flexibility of the supply chain
were:
.
little sharing of information amongst retailers, distributor and suppliers; and
.
fluctuation of fabric demand.

For the suppliers, key constraints for the supply chain flexibility were:
.
batch size of greige goods;
.
quota restriction to US market;
.
lead-times; and
.
insufficient experience in managing demand.

To increase the supply chain flexibility, Leung (1999) concluded that inventory-holding
points should be located for the greige goods in the supply chain. This pre-positioning
of greige fabric has enabled the skiwear company under study in the supply chain to
react more quickly to the market demand for its distributor and trading partners in
Hong Kong. They were able to print/dye the right pattern/colours for their styles,
based on market information.
The problems of information sharing and communication amongst the supply chain
members are reported by Chen (2005) for his study on supply chain management in
fashion industry between UK retailer shops and Chinese clothing manufacturers.
He pointed out that “misunderstanding is a big issue in translating specifications from
English into Chinese” and estimated that the manufacturers in China on average
receive and understand 65.5 per cent of the retailer’s information (Chen, 2005).

Items Lead-time Minimum quantities

Raw material information

Greige fabric 45-90 days 5,000-10,000 yards
Dyeing of fabrics 45-60 days 1,000 yard per colour
Garment Production Information
Table III. Weekly output 12 parkas 1200 units in same style
Lead-time and batch size Line configuration 40 people/line
in Hong Kong for skiwear Shipment information
production HK – Seattle – Denver 42 days
4. Conclusion Apparel supply
From definition, the supply chain involves all the activities in delivering product from chain
raw material to the final customer. The supply chain activities span from internal
organization to external trading partners of suppliers, carriers, third-party companies management
and information system providers. The management of the supply chain, therefore, is a
complex process and involves trust; partnership and information sharing between the
upstream and downstream supply chain partners. 275
The consultancy reports on supply chain management surveys show that Hong Kong
industry is generally not aware of the concept of supply chain management. The
industrial benchmark for both manufacturing and retailing industries in Hong Kong for
the supply chain performance is below the world average.
Although some large enterprises in the textile and apparel industry in Hong Kong
have adopted some forms of supply chain management with their US trading partners
to streamline the supply chain management process, the real benefit of supply chain
management is still largely restricted to big players in the industry.
The typical problems facing with textile and apparel supply chain are short product
cycle for fashion articles, long production lead-time and forecasting errors for fashion
items. The Hong Kong textile and apparel supply chain faces additional problems of
distance from customers in the US and European markets, long production lead-times
and minimum batch sizes for production and recently, the elimination of quota
restrictions in the US market; all these force the industry to maintain its competitiveness
through supply chain management.
The “Accurate Response” suggested by Fisher and Raman (1994) helps to
improve the forecast for short cycle and high fashion apparel items and thus would
be very useful to manage the supply chain in downstream retailing industry. The
differentiation of product demands into functional and innovative products helps the
supply chain company to employ different supply chain strategies for different
products, namely responsive supply chain strategy for innovative products and
efficiency supply chain strategy for functional products. Again, these two supply
chain strategies are focussed on the downstream supply chain aiming at shortening
the time to reach the market and also to reduce the stock levels in the retailing
industry.
The Hong Kong textile and apparel industry, however, is mainly an export-oriented
industry. It occupies the upstream position in the textile and apparel supply chain.
It focuses on design, material sourcing, sample making, dispersed manufacturing,
co-ordination, transportation, documentation, quality assurance and testing in the
supply chain.
The strength of the Hong Kong textile and apparel supply chain lies in its close
relationships with all suppliers in the chain. The geographical and cultural affinity to
the Mainland of China further enhances the relationship between Hong Kong and its
trading partners. Hong Kong, on the one hand, is able to access a pool of quality
suppliers in the Mainland of China; on the other hand, Hong Kong can take advantages
of its own leading position in sales, marketing and professional services to assist
overseas buyers explore the China market, which has become the largest market
in Asia.
The supply chain in Hong Kong, therefore, instead of focussing on logistics,
transportation, time to market and forecast demands, should focus on product
IJCST design, material control, and production co-ordination. The Hong Kong supply
18,4 chain activities should streamline the whole production process from fibres to
yarn, knitting, weaving, dyeing and finishing, through to the garment
manufacturing process.

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Trade and Industry Department (2000), Techno-economic and Market Research on Hong Kong’s Apparel supply
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Journal, 10 March.

Further reading 277

Lee, H., Padmanabhan, V. and Whang, S. (1997), “The bullwhip effect in supply chains”,
Sloan Management Review, Spring, pp. 93-102.

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