Types of inventory:

• Cycle Stock: Apparel operation usually is carried out in batches, which results into accumulated stock before and after a work-center unless the entire batch is completed. This kind of cycle inventory is direct manifestation of any batch process. Its level depends on batch-size and production rate.

• Work in Process Stock: This is common to all kind of operation- batch and continuous. To keep running, every machine needs certain inventory, which is fallen under the present category. Type and productivity of machinery determine the level of this type of inventory.

• Decoupling Stock: In apparel operation, seldom it is possible to balance productivity of every workstation. Differential productivity between work-centers creates bottle-neck area across apparel manufacturing chain. Decoupling stock is created to nullify this bottleneck effect and to maintain smooth material flow. Its level is in proportion to the rate of differences in productivity between two work-centers.

• Safety Stock: This is a result of supply or/and demand variability. To efficiently carrying out operation and satisfying consumer demand, organization needs to maintain stock at certain level, which depends on firms policy and on fluctuation in supply/demand.

Therefore, there exist a wide gamut of demand and broad spectrum of inventory in the Indian apparel industry, which influence the types of supply chain management generally practiced in the industry.

Brief description of apparel supply chain:

Definition of supply chain management as developed and used by The Global Supply Chain Forum (3): Supply Chain Management is the integration of key business processes from end user to original suppliers that provides products, services, and information that add value for customers and other stakeholders.

The above definition is reflected in the configuration of a typical apparel supply, shown in fig-2. As evident, the entire apparel supply chain consists of every organization starting from initial fibre supplier to consumer purchasing apparel products for final consumption. Each organization comprises various functional domains, as manufacturing, planning, marketing etc. as shown in the fig-2. Effective supply chain manages flow of demand and supply, which are moving in the opposite direction to each other, in an efficient way at every node of supply chain.