Fabritex Company Analysis and Review Essay

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Table of Contents

Operations support
Additional information
Reference List

#	Order-winner or order-qualifier	Explanation and arguments from the case
1	Location	Pearlwear is a premium company with an internationally recognized brand name. As of now, the business outsources fabric manufacturing to various suppliers both in Europe and Southeast Asia. As much as labor in Southeast Asia might be significantly cheaper than in Europe, Pearlwear intends to cooperate with UK producers more (Cavusgil 2014). In part, this decision could be explained by easier communication and more control that the close proximity of a supplier may provide (Sancha, Longoni, and Giménez, 2015). Besides, being located in Europe, Fabritext can work on its delivery time and outpace Southeast Asian suppliers.
2	Delivery time	Delivery is one of the main issues that has arisen from Fabritex and Pearlwear’s collaboration. Delivery time is something to be paid attention to in clothes manufacturing (Sancha, Longoni & Giménez 2015). However, some problems are unavoidable, largely due to the low predictability of purchasing patterns. It is true that delivery time is unlikely to be perfectly rectified any time soon, but what truly matters is Fabritex’s willingness to work on the issue. In actuality, the company is quite optimistic about its future prospects: in particular, its top managers state that communication will soon be improved at all levels. This is likely to allow for quicker responses to requests and shorter delivery time (Xiao & Qi 2016).
3	Reputation and cooperation	The Pearlwear business is looking for a trustworthy partner who would be understanding of all the requirements and ready to meet the company’s needs. Due to the particularities of lingerie manufacturing, there is some uncertainty and unpredictability to the demand rate for different types of fabrics. Both seasonality and fashion have impact on what is likely to resonate well with the target audience and be sold out quickly (Thomassey 2014). Therefore, a key order-winner would be the ability of the company to respond quickly and never let the Pearlwear down, especially in high seasons. Reputation is one of the most important key factors of success (Hannington 2016). It is built over time and can be soiled by one minor accident (Hanningon 2016). It is in Fabritex’s best interest to maintain the good rapport that it has with the Pearlwear and keep proving that their cooperation is beneficial for the latter.
4	Target fabrics	Fabritex will strike a chord with Pearlwear if it manages to supply exactly the fabrics that the latter needs. Sofar, Pearlwear has been delegating different kind of fabrics to different suppliers. Fabritex intends to increase its share up to 25%, for which the manufacturer will need to produce goods that are more aligned with what Pearlwear needs. One issue that may arise and that has already been addressed in this analysis is that most likely, even Pearlwear is not 100% sure what it needs for the upcoming season (Stadtler 2015). However, Fabritex stays on the lookout for new trends, which might come in handy when making predictions. For instance, from Exhibit 1 in the case description, it is evident that next year, UK lingerie warp knit sales will be on a steady rise. UK lingerie weft knit sales, on the other hand, will stay at the same level. By maintaining a dialogue with Pearlwear and studying the market, Fabritex has the capacity to produce just what its partner needs.
5	New fabrics	As it has already been mentioned, the success of Pearlwear relies largely on its ability to make predictions regarding customers’ tastes that are tied to both fashion and seasonality. On top of that, in order to satisfy customers’ needs and expand the customer base, Pearlwear is interested in introducing new products. From a marketologist standpoint, such a decision makes sense. At present, between realizing the need and making a purchase, customers spend a great amount of time browsing and comparing alternatives (Wierenga & Van der Lans 2017). A company that is able to offer a wide range of products automatically gains a competitive advantage over others (Moran, Muzellec & Nolan 2014). Taking this into account, another order-winner that Fabritex can create is new products. Moreover, as it is stated in the study description, Fabritex is entertaining the idea of collaborating with Pearlwear’s designers to put unique products on the market. This is a strong order qualifier since it shows that not only is Fabritex interested in serving Pearwear’s interests but is also willing to realize its ideas.
6	Pricing policy	One major hurdle that Fabritex will need to overcome in order to become Pearlwear’s biggest UK supplier is price competition. One of the reasons why Pearlwear has been outsourcing production to the Southeast Asian market is because of the lower prices there. However, this hurdle to increasing Fabritex’s share is nothing insurmountable: given that the rest of the order-winners are in place, the company can change its pricing policies (Luo, Chen, Chen & Wang 2017). Fabritex intends to keep prices a bit lower than usual to become more attractive to Pearlwear and qualify for more orders (San Gan, Pujawan & Widodo 2015).

Table 1. Key order-winners and qualifiers for the Pearlwear business.

Operations support

Operations at Fabritex support Pearlwear’s business needs by providing the type of fabric that the latter requires for manufacturing clothing items, namely, lingerie;
As of now, Fabritex employes two types of knitting processes called warp and weft;
The dying is done at another plant that is located in 12 miles from Fabritex. A part of the said plant is dedicated specifically to Fabritex’s requirements to ensure that the end product is up to the company’s standards;
The end product has two basic specifications: shade and knitting technique. From this information, buyers such as Pearlwear can conclude exactly which products may be of interest for them;
Knitting times vary depending on the type of fabric, which sometimes complicates the calculation of delivery time. One thing that should be noted about operations at Fabritex is set-up or changeover times. Machines cannot produce fabric without breaks; to avoid accidents, a changeover is needed every four hours, after which a machine receives some downtime. During changeovers, the production processes come to a halt, which should also be considered when predicting delivery times;
Fabritex compensates for its shortcomings when it comes to set-ups and changeovers by working long hours. As seen from the case description, machines are working 24 hours/ five days a week;
The process of sending fabric to the dying factory and receiving it back for a checkup and inspection takes about six days;
Fabrics are typically made to order; at that, the availability of raw materials, the complexity of the order, and other factors are considered. Delivery time is calculated by the system based on the previous orders;
Production may be customized upon request: in this case, delivery time may change as the process will have to be adjusted to meet customers’ needs (Christopher 2016);
Some of the strategies that Fabritex employs from time to time includes stocking up on greige in anticipation of big orders. However, sometimes marketers misread the situation, and greige ends up being unwanted. In this case, one measure that Fabritex might undertake is to sell the remaining stock at more attractive, lower prices.

Additional information

As it is apparent from the case description and analysis, Fabritex is facing some issues regarding operations performance. Probably the greatest challenge at hand is optimizing the delivery time to serve Pearlwear’s needs and gain its trust. Therefore, there needs to be gathered some additional information on how exactly Fabritex handles deliveries. First and foremost, the very system that processes requests needs to be revised (Selvarajah & Zhang 2014). It is possible that it needs an update, and probably, underwhelming delivery time could be attributed to its malfunctioning.

Apart from “hard” factors, “soft” factors should also be analyzed to gain deeper insights into why Fabritex is performing below the optimal level. As it has been mentioned in the case description, the company needs to improve communication at all levels.

Bad communication might as well be one of the reasons why Fabritex does not meet its goals (Wilson, Zeithaml, Bitner & Gremler 2016). It makes sense to explore the relationships between different departments and locate obstacles to efficient interactions (Goetsch & Davis 2014). Aside from that, employees’ motivation and engagement could be studied to see whether they understand their role in the company and are satisfied with working conditions. In summation, to advance the case of Fabritex, both hard and soft factors should be taken into account, starting from the system in use and ending with people who make its functioning possible.

Reference List

Cavusgil, ST et al. 2014, International business, Pearson Australia.

Christopher, M 2016, Logistics & supply chain management, Pearson UK.

Goetsch, DL & Davis, S 2014, Quality management for organizational excellence: Introduction to total quality, Pearson US.

Hannington, T 2016, How to measure and manage your corporate reputation, Routledge, Abingdon-on-Thames.

Luo, Z, Chen, X, Chen, J & Wang, X 2017, ‘Optimal pricing policies for differentiated brands under different supply chain power structures’, European Journal of Operational Research, vol. 259, no. 2, pp. 437-451.

Moran, G, Muzellec, L & Nolan, E 2014, ‘Consumer moments of truth in the digital context: How “search” and “e-word of mouth” can fuel consumer decision making’, Journal of Advertising Research, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 200-204.

San Gan, S, Pujawan, IN & Widodo, B 2015, ‘Pricing decision model for new and remanufactured short-life cycle products with time-dependent demand’, Operations Research Perspectives, vol. 2, pp. 1-12.

Sancha, C, Longoni, A & Giménez, C 2015, ‘Sustainable supplier development practices: Drivers and enablers in a global context’, Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 95-102.

Selvarajah, E & Zhang, R 2014, ‘Supply chain scheduling at the manufacturer to minimize inventory holding and delivery costs’, International Journal of Production Economics, vol. 147, pp. 117-124.

Stadtler, H 2015, Supply chain management: An overview. In Supply chain management and advanced planning (pp. 3-28), Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Thomassey, S 2014, Sales forecasting in apparel and fashion industry: a review, in Intelligent fashion forecasting systems: models and applications (pp. 9-27). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Wierenga, B & Van der Lans, R, eds. 2017, Handbook of marketing decision models (Vol. 254), Springer.

Wilson, A, Zeithaml, V, Bitner, MJ & Gremler, D 2016, Services marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm, 3rd European edn, UK.

Xiao, T & Qi, X 2016, ‘A two-stage supply chain with demand sensitive to price, delivery time, and reliability of delivery’, Annals of Operations Research, vol. 241, no. 1-2, pp. 475-496.

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