Stefano Dotti

The Potential of RFID Technology in the Textile and Clothing Industry: Opportunities, Requirements and Challenges

In the current competitive environment, companies need to extensively exploit the use of advanced technologies in order to develop a sustainable advantage, enhance their operational efficiency and better serve customers. In this context, RFID technology has emerged as a valid support for the company progress and its value is becoming more and more apparent. In particular, the textile and clothing industry, characterised by short life-cycles , quick response production , fast distribution, erratic customer preferences and impulsive purchasing, is one of the sectors which can extensively benefit from the RFID technology. However, actual applications are still very limited, especially in the upstream side of the supply network. This chapter provides an insight into the main benefits and potentials of this technology and highlights the main issues which are currently inhibiting its large scale development in the textile and clothing industry. The experience of two industry-academia projects and the relative fallouts are reported.

How Lean Manufacturing Affects the Creation of Sustainable Value: An Integrated Model

Lean Manufacturing (LM) has always been intended as a means to improve efficiency by reducing operations costs, but the recent focus on sustainability and its three pillars (economic, environmental, and social) raises new issues. In this paper, a new model that links LM with sustainability is proposed and then refined through a cross-sector multiple case study. The results highlight a need to align lean implementation processes with sustainability strategy to avoid negative impacts that LM could have on the components of sustainability.

Designing and Configuring the Value Creation Network for Servitization

Despite the numerous benefits that the implementation of a servitization strategy can bring to manufacturing companies, several challenges have to be faced. Among others, changes in competences, resources, organisational structure and value network relationships are required in order to create, capture and deliver new value. In such a context, this paper investigates how the servitization level of a product-service offering impacts on a product-service provider as well as on its value-creation network. A theoretical conceptual model, derived from literature, is developed and then expanded into an explanatory conceptual framework through a case-based methodology. Evidence from the empirical investigation is then discussed and summarised into twelve propositions. Finally, contribution to both theory and practice, as well as some directions for future research, is pointed out.

Lean Manufacturing and Sustainability: An Integrated View

Lean Manufacturing has always been seen as a mean to improve efficiency by reducing operations costs, but the recent focus on sustainability and its three pillar (economic, environmental and social) brought new issues to be addressed. In this paper, a new framework that links lean manufacturing with sustainability is proposed and then refined through a cross-sectoral multiple case study. The results highlight the need to align the lean implementation process with the sustainability strategy in order to avoid the negative impacts that lean production could have on the environmental and social components of sustainability.

A Decision Making Process for Sustainability in the Textile Sector

A growing number of textile companies are adopting sustainable principles as a way of distinguishing themselves from their competitors and gaining a competitive advantage. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a predominant methodology for the systematic evaluation of the potential environmental impacts of a product or service system through all stages of its life cycle. However its influence and relevance for decision making is still limited since the important relationships between the economic and environmental performance are not properly addressed. In this paper, a new decision making process, exploiting the LCA methodology and combining economic and environmental aspects, is proposed.

Exploring the role of human factors in lean management

Although lean popularity is rapidly growing, its implementation is far from problem-free and companies may experience difficulties in sustaining long-term success. On this premises, the purpose of this paper is to understand to what extent human factors, affected by the implementation of both hard (defined as technical and analytical tools) and soft (concerning people and relations) lean practices, play a key role in achieving long-term superior performance.,The analysis of the relationships between lean practices implementation, human factors and operational performance is carried out in a single exploratory case study. A retrospective approach is adopted to trace the changes of human and operational performance before, during and after the introduction of lean management (LM) implementation. In particular, a mixed method concurrent design merging results of a qualitative analysis with data collected from a survey is selected to provide a more realistic benefit in the exploration of the proposed research questions.,The results show a short-term direct relationship between the implementation of lean practices (hard and soft) and physical work environment and job characteristics, directly connected to operational outcome. In the long term, operational performance is influenced by employee behaviour outcome and conditioned by physical work environment and job characteristics with the mediating effect of individual characteristics.,The proposed model supports the building of a roadmap for LM implementation, taking into account the role of the human factors to achieve superior operational performance. Moreover, it helps managers to implement a monitoring system to check how social and technical components of a LM system evolve over time. Finally, it supports the definition of specific training programs, tailored for specific workers’ types.,This paper extends theory in LM, highlighting how hard and soft lean practices have to interact to enable a successful LM implementation.

Leveraging environmental sustainability for competitive advantage in the Italian Clothing and Leather sector

ABSTRACT The present study analyses how the elements of a corporate environmental management system (environmental strategy, environmental management practices (EMPs) and business competitiveness) are connected for the creation of competitive advantage in clothing and leather companies, strongly affected by sustainability issues. The research was conducted through an online survey submitted to Italian companies. A structural equation modelling approach was employed to test the hypothesised model. Results indicate that the implementation of sustainable product and process practices have positive impacts on company’s business competitiveness. Moreover, companies having a greater integration of sustainable practices in their competitive strategy show advantages in terms of brand value, employees’ retention and access to capital. The most important stakeholders involved in the definition of an environmental strategy are suppliers and companies’ employees. Focusing the attention on the business competitiveness impacts of EMPs, companies that have a production plant abroad show greater competitiveness impacts.

Strategic Operations Management in Healthcare: a reference model for Cardiac Rehabilitation

Although operations strategy has been recognised as a relevant topic for the healthcare sector, scarce attention has been devoted to understand how internal and external operations characteristics may interact each other affecting strategic decision-making process. On this premise, this paper introduces a framework built on current literature and further validated through a case study carried out in a Cardiac Rehabilitation department. It aims at identifying the key characteristics of operations for healthcare providers, linking them to the context where a hospital operates. The final framework suggests that internal characteristics are differently influenced by external factors and generate mutual relationships. In addition, they are affected by other internal factors, including variables describing hospital clinical context and hospital operations strategy.

Integrating Sustainability in the Fashion System Using Association Rules

This work aims at analysing the environmental strategies developed by fashion companies in order to identify the most important stakeholders involved in the strategy, the environmental practices carried out and the competitiveness impacts. A conceptual model, based on Association Rules (AR), has been proposed for investigating the network of influences among the environmental strategy, the environmental management practices and the environmental competitiveness and profitability of the companies. The research has been conducted through a survey submitted to fashion companies operating in Textile, Clothing and Leather (TCL) sectors. Results indicate that “customers” and “suppliers” are the most important stakeholders to be involved in the environmental strategy. A greater compliance and a risk reduction can be reached when the Financial institutions, Environmental NGOs, Rivals and Shareholders are involved in the environmental strategy. In this regards, results highlighted the importance of Environmental auditing programme for suppliers and Sustainable disclosures. Moreover, in fashion sector, the companies that pursued “Lower cost” as competitive advantage aim at obtaining from environmental strategy a great access to capital and lower cost of capital.

Environmental Management Practices for the Textile Sector

Environmental sustainability is gaining more and more relevance for textile companies. However, there are often problems with application, even in the most committed companies. In this paper, an empirical typology of Italian textile firms that discern the patterns of practices used in response to environmental issues and concerns that affect such industry is proposed. The resulting typology is composed by three types: Best practice, Good practice and Bad practice. Each type is then characterised in terms of firm’s characteristics and perceived environmental competitiveness benefits. The discussion of some open issues deriving from the empirical analysis precedes the final conclusion.