Identifying the Small Apparel Manufacturer: A Typology of Manufacturing Strategies
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop a typology of small apparel manufacturers (SAMs), firms classified between SIC 2310 to 2389 and less than 50 employees. The objectives were to (a) determine if distinct manufacturing strategies existed among SAMs, (b) develop a profile of these groups using environmental factors known to affect the apparel industry and small businesses (i.e., customer service, operations, barriers, assistance, customer size, customer location, competitor size, competitor location), (c) develop a profile of SAMs based on demographics (i.e., SIC, end-use for products, manufacturing process, type of firm, fashion position, employee size, manufacturing strategy, marketing strategy, annual gross revenue), and (d) determine the existence of a relationship between SAMs use of market strategies and manufacturing strategies. Data were collected from 146 SAMs, which represented 15 states with the highest number of SAMs. Factor analysis was used to identify manufacturing strategy factors (i.e., flexibility, environmental consciousness, product attributes, lot sizes), which were used to cluster respondents; and environmental factors (i.e., customer service, education/industry awareness, flexibility, timing, unit costs, production resources, technology/automation, consistency in sales, investment capital, import reductions). Four clusters of manufacturing strategies emerged and were profiled according to environmental factors and demographic variables (i.e., products, product classification, manufacturing processes, type of firm, type of fashion, manufacturing strategies, marketing strategies, firm's employee size, annual gross revenues). Significant differences occurred among the four manufacturing strategy groups and environmental factors. Significant differences occurred among the four manufacturing strategy groups and demographic variables. No relationship existed between manufacturing strategy groups and their marketing strategy.
Collections
- Doctoral Dissertations [16334]
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Design and Manufacturing of Hierarchical Multi-Functional Materials Via High Resolution additive Manufacturing
Karch, Matthias Ottmar (Virginia Tech, 2017-09-28)This master's thesis deals with the challenges of undesirable thermal expansion in lightweight materials. Thermal expansion of parts or components can lead to malfunction or breakdowns of complete systems in demanding ... -
Manufacture and Characterization of Additively Manufactured Ceramic Electromagnetic Structures
Dumene, Richard Lawrence (Virginia Tech, 2018-06-07)Additive Manufacturing (AM, also known as 3D printing) can produce novel three-dimensional structures using low-loss dielectric materials. This enables the construction of dielectrics with complex shapes that enable ... -
Design and Reconfiguration of Manufacturing Systems in Agile Manufacturing Environments
Daghestani, Shamil F. (Virginia Tech, 1998-12-01)Agile manufacturing has become a topic of great interest over the past several years. The entire domain of modeling and analyzing different types of agile manufacturing environments and systems, however, remain largely ...