My blog entry about the digital transformation of the supply chain and its influence on the sustainability in upstream processes (1/3).

This is my first blog entry here, in which I want to present my field study project. My project deals with the digital transformation of the supply chain and its influence on the sustainability in upstream processes. I am collaborating on this project together with Olga Chkanikova. The project will answer the questions, which technologies are available and how they influence sustainability. In the end, it will be exciting if these will mount to different challenges digital transformation has for sustainability. The article will follow a qualitative inductive approach. The information I need will be gained by a content analysis of scientific articles. Afterwards, a web search will give an insight into the situation of the textile sector. It will answer how many companies apply digitalization in the supply chain and if they have the same experience on the influence of sustainability like which has been found in the articles.

My interest in this topic has its origin in my latest job experience. I have been working as an intern in supply chain management in a company producing socks, pantyhose, and sports apparel. The automatization and digitalization of the supply chain have been just started and was challenging. The discussion if the digital photo processing quality control can really substitute human eyes has been made. The discussion was not only  made for the sake of the quality but as well the sustainability. Questions such as which employees will be needed or if people will lose their jobs have been raised. 

After I talked about the main information regarding my research I would like to talk about my current situation. I am very excited about this field study and I think that gaining more information about my topic is very interesting, as it is such an important topic for the textile industry. I found now 10 peer-reviewed articles by keyword research, which I am currently trying to analyze. Besides, I have started with the introduction, problem statement, and literature review. Today I will start with the description of the methodology, which will be more challenging. Therefore, I am gaining information from the social research book from Bryman. 

Working in times of Corona has not been easy for me. It is hard to resist all the different influences one can find at home. As well as the insecurity of how to proceed working while social distancing is hard. The worries that my family is fine and the hope Corona will hopefully find a peaceful end is steadily present. But on the other hand, having time for myself has been not only challenging but as well contributes to new skills. Working under conditions which are uncertain and as well distracting will teach me how to deal with these circumstances. 

Therefore, I hope that I can continue my work despite all influences. Next week I will write again to you. See you soon.

Identifying Digital Transformation of Business Models in Industry 4.0

Hi Everone!

I decided to choose a research assistant internship as this will shape my profession in academia. I was able to collaborate with senior lecturer Olga Chkanikova. After researching many topics I grew my interest in digitalization in business models. With the fervent guidance of the coordinator, I shaped my topic which is Identifying Digital Transformation of Business Models in Industry 4.0. This topic supports ongoing research at the university.

By the time we planned our internship the world was affected by the malevolent spreading of COVID-19 virus. The affected countries and the regions from the COVID-19 are at the heart of the global supply chain. So this has disrupted the supply chain of many industries including textiles and fashion. Due to this unfortunate situation, many of us have to face difficulties in data gathering and some of my colleagues had difficulty in finding internship opportunities in their field of interest.

The need for digitalization has become a hot topic in the business. Also, consumers tend to use digital tools in product and service offerings and consumption. In the fourth industrial revolution paradigm production and consumption transform the industrial systems through digitalization. Consequently, the businesses are having a digital transformation in their business models to capture the value and gain a competitive advantage from differentiation. From this research topic, I’m planning to identify value proposition, user engagement, and partnership of the digital business models. 

Although I wanted to conduct interviews with industrials due to the current pandemic situation this was sidelined. Therefore I am doing a content analysis literature review on this topic. I have gathered literature papers on peer-reviewed research journals to gain the validity of the research. The selected articles are from 2015 to 2020. Also I’m using industrial reports as secondary data. This research topic will explore the transformation of business models relating to the textile and apparel industry and bring worth to future research studies.

I'm exploring more about this interesting topic and hope to share them with you in my next blog. Everyone stay safe,  happy & healthy! 

Textile and Fashion 2030 - Use & Consumption

Since the last I wrote, about two weeks have passed. The work is starting to take shape and I am starting to gain more clarity on how to submit my report as I find relevant information. I have also received clear guidelines from my supervisor and researcher Jonas, regarding what to do and what to focus on. I will be introduced to a couple of people who are either active in the Textile and Fashion 2030 project or are working with Mistra Future Fashion to be able to get further information and input.

A structure is being created for how our findings will be presented, until it is completed, information search is ongoing. At present, I am summarizing previous literature in the area of ​​use and consumption linked to sustainable development and minimized environmental impact from a company's perspective. I have read Mistra's publications in the field, which have contributed to a lot of very relevant information. This literature has been partially used and then supplemented with literature from Google Scholar and the University of Borås library database.
Something that is very interesting to reflect on during the work in this section is how incredibly different conclusions literature has depending on when it was published. The older the literature is, the less environmental impact the production stage has seemed to have, and the later the larger. It says a lot about globalization and mass production that has accelerated only in the last 7-10 years.

I have made some changes in my planning over the past two weeks. I have changed the structure of my report and thus also made it somewhat more scaled down. For me, the focus is on producing and finding as clear and accurate business actions as possible - where the biggest impact can be, with as little resources as possible. This is to enable as many textile and fashion companies as possible to implement and adopt the goals.

That was all for me this time!

WargoTex – Business Model Experimentation

Since I have already had the opportunity to do an extensive company internship within my former studies, I decided to opt for the research assistant internship instead. The Swedish School of Textiles and Science Park Borås conduct a lot of interesting projects regarding sustainable fashion, so I figured that I should utilise the chance to discover the field that I am passionate about in more detail. 

I am conducting my research in the course of the WargoTex project, which aims to establish a test and demo facility for textile resource optimisation in Sweden across the fashion and textile industry. The facility will be used to drive and support development issues related to large-scale sorting and recycling of post-consumer textile waste. As a member of the project, Science Park Borås focusses its research efforts particularly on business model experimentation for circularity, which has the potential to lead to a variety of sustainable solutions. 

A research assistant internship involves a lot of independent studies, but gives you also the possibility to manage your time and workload yourself which I highly appreciate. This kind of freedom can be an advantage if you know in what direction you are headed, but it can also represent a challenge due to the overwhelming variety of choices. Since you need access to relevant literature which might be difficult regarding highly sustainable and innovative topics, I personally prefer to research a bit in all directions before I make my final decision. In this case, I decided to focus on opportunities and challenges for establishing a joint business model for circularity in the fashion industry.

After four weeks of researching I have gained a good overview of various relevant topics and could luckily gain access to very specific information closely related to the topic. Since the project is conducted in collaboration with Lindex, KappAhl and Björkåfrihet, my next step is to start developing an empirical data collection instrument for assessing the company’s insights on opportunities and challenges for establishing such a joint business model. I hope that the companies are able to collaborate in these unpredictable times.

Reshoring: the influences on decision making process for fashion retailer

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I am a bit excited with the course “Field Study in Textile Management” as from the very first I am trying to manage the internship with some company. I had worked in the production country for a couple of years and always eager to know how things are going on retail. I managed to do the internship with the Lindex kid’s department but due to the unexpected situation for Covid-19, it got cancelled at the last moment like some other students. At that time, I was upset and broken but immediately I made myself ready to do individual field study of some relevant topic.

No one ever thinks of these days where we confine ourselves with the words lock down, social distancing, stay home. Seems everything has stopped at one point and nature returns with all its beauty. Not only our daily life but also the world economy has affected a lot. Most of the retails are bound to close the stores, people lose their job, laying off the working hour and ultimately result in sales loss. Some brands need to cancel or hold the upcoming order that has a huge impact on production countries and overall supply chain.

I am interested in the topic “Reshoring” while I do the course “Sustainable supply chain management” as now all the actors in retail business are more concerned about sustainability. Though since the 1960s textile and apparel industry had started offshoring for the competitive advantage of low cost in developing countries and complex supply chains, now the focus gradually moves back to nearshoring and reshoring. In this research paper, I will emphasize on the facts and figures that influence retailers to back their production facility in their home country.

In this pandemic situation, my mind is scattered and sometimes I am much worried about my family from a long distance. But I must overcome all the difficulties and have started to explore the topic. I find it as a most interesting topic with lots of recent research papers. I will do a literature review, for this firstly I select some primary keywords as it’s the first guideline to select the most relevant paper. Later I narrow it down to make it more precise with my research question. I select all English peer reviewed papers published in a renowned journal, as it assures these papers are reviewed and approved by the practitioners of this field which increases the validity and acceptability of these papers. Most of the papers are published between the time frame of 2013 to 2019 and researchers are exploring different aspects of reshoring.

I am exploring the topic further and hope to share some exciting findings on my next blog. Till then everyone stays safe and makes other people happy. 

Approaches of visual communication in digital marketing from a fashion retail perspective.

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I am Rayhan, a masters student of fashion marketing and management of AW19. This is my first blog on a university webpage and I am pretty excited though the current pandemic situation is not helping me to concentrate on my field studies.

The beginning of this course was a bit stressful for me! I managed an internship in one of the fashion brand companies in Göteborg but couldn’t do that due to the uncertain circumstances of Covid-19. It is true that as a newcomer in Sweden it was quite challenging for me to manage a company internship but I had no other option except to accept the consequences. As it cancelled at the last moment, it made me so frustrated and I had very little time to think about my individual field study! However, my teacher Jenny helped me a lot and guided me to pursue my interest.

Apart from that, I tried to be in contact with the sunny, charming part of Borås to freshen my body and mind. Recently I visited Ramnaparken and walked along the side of the lake. A funny thing I have seen there, a duck was chased by three other ducks that mimic the situation of mine. I am being chased by the upcoming uncertainties of coronavirus, the situation of my family in my home country and the pressure of doing the IFS! Off-course, I have to overcome all those.

My chosen topic is approaches of visual communication in digital marketing from a fashion retail perspective. Human brain can process visuals 60, 000 times faster than text.  And ninety percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual. So, to grab the user’s attention on a digital platform, visual contents play a vital role. Visual communication is referred to as the science of storytelling. It creates relationships between the brand and potential customers. To find out the suitable approaches of visual communication in the digital marketing aspect are the main field of my research. 

Wish me luck and Thank you for reading!

Introduction to Product Management Internship at a German Luxury Fashion Company

Hello everyone,

It has been three weeks already since I started my internship at a German luxury fashion company in the department Product Management. I am so glad that it kicked off the way it did even though the pandemic Covid-19 is still limiting retailers. On my first day, I was physically in the office and everyone was so welcoming, helping me to set up the mobile office. 

The company has two lines: one addresses the younger generations and the other the more sophisticated, slightly older ones. 

My department is in charge for the menswear clothing (suits, jackets, trousers and coats) and dress furnishings (shirts, jewellery and neckwear) product management. It covers design up to the sales to the retailers and wholesalers. Therefore, based on analyses, we estimate future sales and predict what styles will be sold at what quantities. We are in direct contact with e.g. designers and creatives as well as operations and salespeople. Once new collections are created, the salespeople from around the world usually fly in and get to see and feel the new styles and materials in the local showroom on the campus. There is a digital showroom for one line, but unfortunately not for ours, yet. This has been a major challenge during the pandemic situation since a digitalized solution had to be set up form the scratch within a few days. 

In general, there are four season that are dealt with at the same time, being in different stages of the production process. It provides us with a variety of tasks to fulfil and makes it pretty diversified. 

Due to Covid-19 there is so much work to do in this department and hence I was thrown into the work straight away, my support was very much needed. In the matter of this pandemic, the width and depth of the collection for next year had to be revised. I was in charge to prepare the data for the management to take decisions based on that and cut the collection by a certain percentage. This way, the company might be able to reduce liabilities to generate liquid assets. It was a lot of responsibility which I really appreciated, and it gave me a very good insight in the relevant menswear styles and process aspects so far. Of course, at first it was a bit overwhelming, but at the same time I got to learn so much already, helping me to understand the complexity of the operations. I am introduced into all applicable procedures and systems gradually.

Overall, the company has dealt with the Covid-19 situation in a very professional manner. While some departments work 100% from home, there are other ones, like us, that have to come into the office every now and then because there are many materials and equipment crucial for the progress of our work which can only be accessed on site. 
Beyond, the production facilities on the campus are now completely converted into mask and protection clothing production.

I am very excited about this internship so far and it totally meets my expectations. Let’s see how it continues and next time I will dive deeper into the field study I am executing.

// Josephina 

IFS: Literature Review about Supply Chain Risk Management

#1

Who would have thought that we will have to cope with a pandemic in the 21^st century? The spread of Covid-19 affects all our lives and there is nothing more to do than following the new rules as good as possible and being patient and hopeful. 

But not only our everyday life is highly affected by the pandemic, especially the economy is suffering these days. Many fashion retailers were required to close their stores and as a result, they were left off with tremendous loss of sales and needed to cut their costs. Unfortunately, this resulted in many fashion retailers cancelling or putting their orders on hold, so that the loss is moving upstream along the supply chain. For example, Bangladesh’s manufacturing fashion industry reported a loss of $6 billion dollars of export revenue, closing down factories and leaving millions of people without jobs and payments. 

Due to the pandemic many of us had to adjust plans for the field study, since internships were cancelled, and new rules force us to leave our homes as little as possible. However, this novel situation also inspired me for the topic of my Individually Designed Field Study (IFS). I am going to write a systematic literature review on Risk Management in the Textile Supply Chain. 

I want to investigate the different kinds of risks prevalent in the Textile Supply Chain and strategies and methods in Risk management to cope with these risks. Although it would be highly interested to focus on macro risks as the pandemic, I think that this topic is too novel and too narrow as that research would give sufficient answers yet. However, I am planning to use this literature review as a foundation for the upcoming master thesis to see what fashion retailers learned from the pandemic in terms of Supply Chain Risk Management.

Based on the guidelines proposed in an article I read, I divided my research into four different phases and today I completed the 1^st phase, which involved designing my research, particularly the search strategy. I defined keywords, relevant databased and including and excluding criteria. These decisions are crucial for the quality and scope of the research; thus, I started with researching Supply Chain Risk Management overall to gather an overview and some basic knowledge about it. Additionally, I asked for some advice from some who have more experience in this field. As a result, I decided to narrow the time frame down, focusing on research between 2015 to 2020 in order to identify Risk Management in the era of the digitalization. It will be interesting to see if new technologies simplified handling risks, even though these days it feels like that it is not possible to prepare for such an event as a pandemic.

Next week the 2^nd phase will begin, which means conducting the search. This will show if my previous made decisions will lead to finding sufficient articles and answer my research question. So, hopefully I will report positive results in the next blog entry. 

Stay safe and healthy, everyone! 

Textile and Fashion 2030 - Use & Consumption

The Field Study in Textile Management started just over two weeks ago. The course requires an internship, which I was kind of early to find. During the first semester of the program Textile Value Chain Management we had a few seminars with researcher Jonas Larsson - who works at the Swedish School of Textiles. During his lectures he talked about several projects he has been a part of which caught my interest and was why I applied for a collaboration with him as a Research Assistant Intern. 

Unfortunately, as a result of Covid-19, several of my colleagues have had the misfortune of losing their internships at fashion and textile companies as many offices have closed down and resources have been withdrawn. This has forced many to change their plans. Fortunately, interesting research projects are continuing at the school, which have become alternative solutions for some. 

During my internship as a Research Assistant Intern, I will work with Textile and Fashion 2030 - a project where the school has been commissioned by the government to establish and lead the national platform for sustainable fashion and sustainable textiles. The five-year assignment is run by Smart Textiles, part of the Science Park Borås at the University of Borås, in collaboration with the Swedish School of Textiles, the Swedish Fashion Council, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, Svensk Handel and TEKO, Sweden's Textile and Fashion Companies. The project is divided into 3 areas of knowledge; Materials, Chemistry & Recycling, Product design, Production & Technology and Business Models & Consumption. Jonas Larsson is the leader of the last area of ​​knowledge - Business Models & Consumption which is therefor also my research area. 

Currently I am in the beginning of my work and for me, the virus has only meant a few small changes where the method for collecting data has changed slightly - as interviews are no longer to the same extent optimally. My task during this internship is to develop challenges to be presented at an upcoming conference in November, as a part of the project Textile and Fashion 2030. I am supposed to present 5 graspable sustainable ”business actions” for textile and fashion companies to take on as a challenge. The actions will be connected to the area Business Models & Consumption, and will be presented in a way that is easy to understand with sub-categories such as: ”benefits”, ”potential impact”, ”sustainability aspect”, ”how easy” and ”innovation possibilities”. During my internship I will make some interviews with people that Jonas Larsson has introduced me to. I will also look at some previous projects such as Fact Movement and Mistra Future Fashion, as it will be of great use for me during the internship. Some of the people I interview have been a part of the projects mentioned. 

What I will focus on now in the near future is to make a literature review on past research in the field of Business Models & Consumption within the textile and fashion industry, which will form a basis for my research. I hope that within the next week the design of this project will be set. 

I look forward to carrying out this project and despite the circumstances, hope to have the opportunity to meet and share the knowledge of many experienced people. I feel very excited to be part of such an important project as Textile and Fashion 2030 and I am delighted to share my work with you here here while it is going on.

BestBefore – Design of Experiment & Longevity

Two weeks have now passed since embarking on the field study, and a lot of knowledge and insights has been gained in the process. Initially when trying to decide on a type of field study, I thought I would do a normal internship with a company, but after a lot of thought and consideration, going back and forth between the different types. I decided that a research assistant internship could provide me with new challenges and new insights. As I have previously done a few company internships before, I thought it could be interesting to delve into the research aspect to gain more insight in this field as it is a somewhat unknown territory to me. 

Rudrajeet Pal introduced me to the research project called BestBefore, which in short is a research project in collaboration with Fjällräven and Swedish institute for standards, where the aim is to develop an AI-based methodology for predictive analysis based on the degradation pattern for different durability properties over time, which will help put an optimum best-before date for sustainable longevity in the clothing industry. The research includes designing an experiment, including wash-tests and seam slippage tests according to ISO-standards, which will help gain insight in the degradation of Fjällräven products. The insight gained within this research project will hopefully result in replacing generic, resource intensive product development in the clothing industry with the help of a predictive method. 

The first two weeks of this research project has been changed as the plan was to delve straight into the experiments, including the wash tests, but due to the current Covid-19 situation, things have had to be altered, which has resulted in the focus on reading and researching to develop an extensive design of experiment. It something I’m new to and has been very interesting as it enables you to plan how the experiments will be executed down to the smallest details. By utilizing Design of experiment techniques, you can determine the individual and interactive effects of the various factors that can influence the outputs result of your measurements. By utilising DoE it’s possible to gain knowledge and estimate the best operating conditions of a system, process or product, and since we have received garments and fabric from Fjällräven that are quite expensive it’s necessary to ensure that all factors are taken into account when designing the experiment, so no errors are made and materials are wasted. 

After researching the basics of the techniques of the design of experiment I started doing research in the different ISO-standards that could be relevant for our testing phase as well as research articles relevant to the topic to gain more knowledge and understand how other research groups have implemented different experiments including the ISO-standards. the ISO-standards are thought as a formula that describes the best way to do something. Reading a range of ISO enabled me to map them and look at limitations in regard to which ones where possible to use in regard to the materials of the garments we had received. After mapping the ISO’s I could select two which were of the most value to the research project, while being feasible within the current time constraint. 

Following the research on standards for the experiments, I delved into researching the concept of longevity as it’s a relevant topic to the research topic and covers a lot of different aspects. When reading about longevity durability of clothing is often mentioned and what I found is that durability of garments can be divided into two, the first and most obvious is physical durability, which focuses on the garment construction and how the garment withstand  surface abrasion, odour, staining, colour fastness etc., which are aspect which can affect the lifetime of a garment. The second is emotional durability, which focuses on relevance and desirability. Just because a garment is made of good, strong materials doesn’t mean the active lifetime will be long, because the garment could fail in terms of becoming aesthetically obsolete. Emotional durability connects to comfort, how the garment ages, style, does it transcend across seasons and will it withstand the changing scene of the industry. Durability helps drive quality, which safeguards against garment failure and can ultimately strengthen brand reputation and cement customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

So far, I’ve managed to gain a lot of knowledge and is thoroughly excited to see how this research project will progress, even though there have been some alterations due to the current situation. I’m still trying to make the best of it and just diving into the field of research, spending a lot of time reading and finding relevant literature to the subject. I hope that within the next week I can finalize the design of experiment, so it can be revised by the partners involved and then continue researching the concept of longevity into more detail as it’s a concept which I find highly interesting and inspiring.