Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has put fashion manufacturers’ needs for optimization in the spotlight. This study argues that mass customization is becoming increasingly instrumental for offering consumers individualized solutions and that suppliers of fashion have to look for more sophisticated solutions in order to face the increasing demand for more sustainable products. With the deduction of a mathematical model derived from production sequencing it became evident that sustainability can be associated with a level production schedule and that cost-based production optimization is useful in achieving holistic sustainability in the fashion industry. The flexibility in the conceived mathematical model specifications allows for a generalizable approach, not limited to a single branch of the fashion industry. This paper additionally delivers a cost-based optimization approach which fashion companies, operating in a mass customization production layout, can easily implement without extensive know-how. The proposed two-stage algorithm is based on the concept of level scheduling. In a first stage, the algorithm determines a feasible production sequence in a time-efficient way while, in the second stage, it further advances the efficiency of the solution. Thus, it offers a framework to optimize a production in a mass customization environment and can contribute to a company taking major steps towards a holistic sustainable orientation as available resources are used more (cost) efficiently.
Highlights
Flow shop [34] or job shop [35] based scheduling provide valuable insights for production scheduling in the fashion industry, Section 5 deduced that especially level scheduling—as derived from the Toyota approach—is ideally suited to cope with sequencing production running on assembly lines in a mass customization (MC) environment [50]
This paper explored an unconventional approach while focusing on optimization by means of a production scheduling tool, usually used in the automotive industry
The focus of this study lied on MC-producing fashion companies with special attention to the need for action resulting from the pandemic and the motivation to promote sustainability in fashion production
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. The various gradations harbor both opportunities and threats for manufacturers [7,8], resulting in the need of carefully outweighing which customer integration and personalization options should and could be offered from a strategic and operational perspective Within these production formats, the layouts can be different: Sustainability 2022, 14, 538. Sustainable fashion production refers to environmentally friendly and socially responsible processes, and strongly requires a minimal waste approach To achieve this target, it is both imperative that the individual process steps are designed as efficiently as possible and that the entire supply chain is optimized [31].
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