A conceptual framework for the operations planning of the textile supply chains: Insights for sustainable and smart planning in uncertain and dynamic contexts

Abstract

Recent practices in textile supply chains (SC) show a growing concern for sustainability not only in its economic dimension, but fundamentally in its environmental and social ones. One of the key management processes that affect sustainability is the SC operations planning since its fundamental role in achieving a balance between supply and demand in a sustainable manner. Moreover, in an uncertain and dynamic environment such as the textile sector, it is necessary to provide a certain learning capability to the operations planning techniques used to increase the speed and quality of response of the textile SC to unexpected situations. In this context, mathematical programming models, heuristics and artificial intelligence techniques have proven their validity to achieve sustainable, robust and smart supply chains. Despite their potential, neither a conceptual framework (CF) nor a literature review have been detected to support the development and study of such models in the textile supply chain operations planning. In view of these gaps, this paper proposes a CF for supporting the sustainable and smart operations planning of the textile supply chains in a dynamic and uncertain context based on a set of dimensions, categories and elements that reflect the specific characteristics of the textile sector. Firstly, a tentative CF is predefined based on other generic works on SC operations planning in uncertain context and the own authors’ knowledge. Secondly, a structured literature review based on this CF has been made resulting, at the same time, in the updating of some of its dimensions, categories and elements to reflect some textile specific characteristics. Consequently, the CF is not only predefined but also logically derived from the literature analysis. The results of the literature review show that there is a great opportunity to contribute to making textile supply chains more sustainable, smart, flexible, robust and resilient in dynamic and uncertain environments.