Supply chain collaboration — A case study of textile and apparel industry

Over the last few decades, the benefits of supply chain collaboration (SCC) are established by scholars and practitioners. However, the existing literature has also demonstrated that collaboration is the most difficult part of supply chain strategies. In practice, most of the organizations end up in failures for SCC initiatives. Given this trend, this research aims to investigate how SCC practices are implemented in an organization. Further, it is to identify the main reasons for the failures. An in-depth case study of one textile - apparel industry in Vietnam is used to examine those issues. While internal collaboration and continuous improvement activities are affirmed to be critical factors for effective SCC, the results demonstrate that the lack of information integration and scientific management has limited the organization's ability to achieve them. These failures lead to poor performances such as high late delivery, poor quality percentage and the inefficiency in operating the system.