Over the years, the clothing industry has been scattered, disordered, inefficient and chaotic. In addition, China's economy has entered a new normal, the economic growth rate has slowed down, and domestic demand has continued to decline. In this "troubled winter era", China's clothing manufacturing industry is in danger.



However, it seems pale to complain and feel powerless to talk. At this time, it is the boundless road to see the situation clearly and follow up the reform. We analyze and study the clothing industry from the five aspects of "background, labor, core, spirit and opportunity". The five current situations of the clothing industry force the deepening reform of the supply chain to be imminent.





Background: industry 4.0 and made in China





Regardless of industry, Lang Xianping said: as long as industry 4.0 is spread all over the world, made in China will collapse and disintegrate.





At present, intelligent industrial equipment has become the basis of the upgrading and transformation of global manufacturing industry. Developed countries regard the upgrading of manufacturing industry as the primary task of industry 4.0. Take the production plant of German flying shuttle Harley locomotive as an example. In the era before industry 3.0, it took 21 days to produce a Harley locomotive, because its production process was all fixed mechanization. But in the era of industry 4.0, a customer orders a customized motorcycle at nine o'clock in the morning. All the five modules are alive. According to the customer's needs, they find their own raw materials, find their own factories, repackage and regroup. Within six hours, they can give the customized motorcycle to the customer.



In addition to greatly shorten the time, intelligent has another advantage, the cost is basically reduced by 40%.





At present, China's manufacturing industry is very difficult, and the cost has caught up with that of the United States. If the United States promotes industry 4.0, the cost will drop by another 40%, where are our opportunities for competition! At present, the manufacturing cost of Germany and Britain is about 10% - 20% higher than that of China. As long as we promote industry 4.0, the cost will be much lower than that of China. Where is the hope of our competition!





As a big manufacturing country, China's enterprises are facing severe economic transformation, and are in the stage of marching from a big manufacturing country to a powerful manufacturing country. The state has put forward the national strategy of "made in China 2025", which is similar to the strategic thinking of industrial Internet in the United States and industry 4.0 in Germany, and can effectively help enterprises achieve upgrading and transformation.







If the clothing industry does not reform, it may not be the fastest, but it must be the worst.



Labor: employment problem highlights, productivity needs to be liberated





In 2016, there were 7.65 million college graduates in China, an increase of 160000 over last year. Although the growth rate has slowed down in recent years, the number of college graduates this year is still at a new high. On the other hand, the slowdown of China's economic growth and the corresponding reduction of employment in enterprises and institutions have led to the increasing employment pressure of college students. In addition, driven by industry 4.0, ordinary repetitive manufacturing is more and more inclined to intelligent production, and the prospect of workers' employment pressure is also difficult.





In the traditional clothing supply chain, workers belong to factories, and their income is the number of pieces. In order to successfully complete the next order, there is usually a reserved time for debugging the machine and adjusting the process. Of course, in this idle period, a large number of workers will be unemployed, which leads to a waste of labor. This kind of waste is extremely fatal in the clothing manufacturing industry facing the overall deepening reform.





Therefore, releasing productivity and promoting workers' self upgrading is a potential direction of personnel reform.



Core: platitude, business risk caused by inventory





In all manufacturing industries, I'm afraid few industries have a more extensive and profound impact on inventory backlog than the clothing industry. This is closely related to the fashion trend changing too fast and the changing consumer demand.





The traditional supply chain has to place an order 3-6 months in advance, and at least one thousand pieces are ordered, resulting in a large backlog of inventory of clothing retailers, which leads to the inflexibility of cash flow turnover. What's more, the prediction of the market is more than half a year, which makes it difficult for the clothing brand to grasp the current fashion trend. The clothing that has been hoarded for half a year is found to be out of date and has to be sold at a discount, which reduces the profit again.





Inventory problem is always the core problem of the clothing industry, who can solve this problem, who is the leader of the clothing supply chain.





Spirit: made in China, the blank of ingenuity





There are tens of thousands of century old shops and even millennium old shops in Japan. The secret for many Japanese enterprises to last for centuries or even millennia is to persevere in their own business and not be influenced by the "craftsman spirit" of immediate profits. Italian craftsmen and workshops are well-known. Many luxury brands come from Italian small workshops. Italian craftsmen, everyone pursues excellence. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other German speaking countries, in addition to many well-known automobile, watch and home appliance brands, there are also a large number of successful small and medium-sized enterprises, which focus on production and manufacturing, pay attention to innovation and R & D, and have a large number of highly skilled labor force. These enterprises lead the world in some subdivided industries, but they are not known by outsiders and can be called "invisible champions".





In Japan, Italy, Germany and other countries, craftsmanship spirit has been well inherited.





Looking at China, Li Ning's downfall, Benny road's collapse and ingenuity are gone. All the glitz is gone. The soul of "made in China" is still a Chinese dream for Chinese people.





Where there is a blank, there is a market, and only when there is a feeling can there be business. Clothing industry made in China, when the heart of manufacturing.





Opportunity: bad trading environment, bad currency drives out good currency





The domestic clothing market is composed of more than 1 million information isolated islands (nearly 100000 fabric stalls and about 1 million small factories / workshops scattered across the country) with closed information. The scale of this low-end clothing supply chain market is as high as about 1 trillion, but such a large market is always an abnormal ecology of "bad money drives out good money" - as long as the price is low and can deceive people, you can get orders, low quality and low price win.





Such a deformed market is really terrible. I'm afraid to think about it carefully. But is this another opportunity brewing?





Under the opportunity, the clothing flexible supply chain is the trend





In the long-term practice, in view of the above industry status, the pioneers of the clothing supply chain continue to explore, and open up a new idea for the upgrading and reform of the supply chain: make every effort to build a flexible supply chain of clothing. The specific operation is: through the use of intelligent production to grasp market demand more accurately; through social production and deep optimization, capacity can be solved in the flexible supply chain while solving the problem of the difficulty of improving the technical level of the clothing workers and the employment of the workers; and using the Internet plus mode to catch the trend of the fashion and improve the efficiency of the transaction.





On the other hand, many factory entrepreneurs have been headache for the improvement of workers' quality and professional skills. Under the traditional clothing supply chain environment, the working environment of workers is messy and poor, the machinery and equipment are backward, the working hours are not free, and the wages are not guaranteed. In many cases, workers have to go to several factories to complete a day's work, and they can't concentrate on improving their skills. Now, through the Internet platform, we can realize the free control of production capacity, region and time, the choice of opportunities, promote the flow of talents, improve the income of workers, and begin to concentrate on professional skills and improve the quality. Ordinary workers become skilled workers, and skilled workers gradually become the real craftsmen in the Internet era.





The Internet plus era has changed the needs of users at the C end, prompting personalized customized production platforms. Flexible supply chain is based on such demand. It has enough flexibility and capacity to respond quickly according to market demand. It helps clothing brands to place orders one year to six months in advance to 10 days in advance, order 100 pieces in multiple styles and small batches, and turn orders in large quantities in three days. No matter large orders or small orders, it can ensure uniform and controllable quality and timely delivery. For customers, the advantage is that they can be closer to the market to make production plans, instead of making predictions so long in advance, so as to reduce inventory, which will bring the flexible and rapid response of the supply chain to the extreme. Help brands to seize the trend, increase sales opportunities, and eliminate the risk of inventory backlog.





Under the new normal of China's economy, the domestic economy is on the decline as a whole. In this situation of national deflation, the entrepreneurs of garment manufacturing industry should be more determined to provide customers with the lowest price and the most reliable "clothing flexible supply chain service", provide consumers with reliable clothing products, and seek the interests and development for workers and craftsmen. In the future, more conscientious enterprises are needed to make contributions to the industry and practitioners.