Amazon continues to cast a shadow over the apparel industry. Not only does the e-commerce giant create pricing headaches for major clothing manufacturers, but the company’s supply chain efficiencies and trove of consumer data are exceedingly hard to match.
The next shot from Seattle could be even more disruptive. <!–more–>
“By aggregating orders from various geographic locations and coordinating apparel assembly processes on a large-scale, the embodiments provide new ways to increase efficiency in apparel manufacturing,” reads the patent. The implication is that excess inventory would be no longer be a problem.
Amazon, which already has it own brands of shoes, dresses and suits, is also planning to develop a line of activewear. While it’s unclear in what direction Amazon’s apparel push will go, on-demand apparel manufacturing could create a broad reset in the textile industry.
The Amazon patent shows the process starts when customers submit their online orders. Patterns are printed onto rolls of fabric.
This post provided courtesy of Jay and Barry’s OM Blog at www.heizerrenderom.wordpress.com. Professors Jay Heizer and Barry Render are authors of Operations Management , the world’s top selling textbook in its field, published by Pearson
