1、外文翻译 原文 ERP Systems for the Textiles and Clothing Industry Material Source: CNKI Author: Patrick C.L. Abstract: The textiles and clothing (TC) industry is well-known to be highly intensive in labor, raw material, product, capital, and inventory. Nowadays, companies in the TC supply chains have emplo
2、yed a wide array of technologies for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of different business processes. In particular, the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system has been rather widely implemented, and it has proven to be critical to the success of many TC companies. This paper aims to i
3、nvestigate the applications of ERP systems and explore the respective enabling technologies in the TC supply chains via studying various real company cases and reviewing some real ERP solutions. In addition, the main barriers of implementing the ERP systems in the TC industry are identified. Various
4、 critical success factors for the implementation of ERP systems are discussed. We conclude by exploring some future development directions. Keywords: Enterprise resource planning _ Management information systems _ Supply chain management _ Textiles and clothing 1 Introduction The unprecedented growt
5、h of information and communication technologies has affected all facets of computing applications across companies in the textiles and clothing (TC) industry. At the same time, the business environment is becoming increasingly complex, with functional units requiring more and more inter functional D
6、ata flows within TC supply chains for timely and efficient procurement of product parts, management of inventory, accounting, human resources, and distribution of goods and services. To deal with these challenges, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is one of the proposed solutions, and it
7、has been implemented widely, especially in the larger scale TC companies. 2 Literature Review Supply chains in the TC industry are highly dynamic, and different stages have different requirements with respect to information. In the literature, it is well known that information sharing scheme can eff
8、ectively fight challenges such as the Bullwhip Effect in the supply chain. To enhance information sharing and other crucial operations, many TC companies have employed the company-wide centralized ERP system as a solution (Callaway 1999). The main purpose of implementing an ERP system is to achieve
9、integration and coordination both within the company and across the industry. This will in turn lead to cost reduction and hence pro fitability improvement (Koch et al. 1999). With successful implementation, the ERP systems influence is immense. However, there is no guarantee for success. In Stefano
10、 (1999), it is argued that an effective application of ERP systems is closely related to a corresponding business process re-engineering (BPR) scheme. In particular, TC companies that have implemented the ERP systems should have re-focused and shifted from a functional to a cross-functional and inte
11、r-organizational operation mode. In many cases, the requirements of information used in companies become more advanced, and a “flexible, integrated, and modular” (see Stefano (1999) for more) system is needed to support activities across the supply chain from upstream to downstream. It is known that
12、 companies that are motivated to implement ERP systems aim at achieving improvements in different aspects of the company (Callaway1999). For instance, improvements can be along the supply chain via more coordinated applications within one company (Callaway 1999) and/or among channel members, with a
13、seamless flow and sharing of information (Glenn 2008). These areas are all relevant to and are crucial for companies in the TC industry. In the literature, the importance of ERP system for TC supply chain management has been explored. In Au and Ho (2002), it is argued that ERP systems can support th
14、e TC industry by allowing the implementation of e-commerce models, which helps transform the channel into an “integrated, web-enabled supply chain.” In addition, unlike many other industries pattern of commodity flow, a “buyer-driven commodity chain” is extensively observed in the TC industry. Such
15、a commodity chain incurs higher costs, and a better management of supply chain is desirable. Giraffe (1999) has observed that the ERP systems, with their ability to consolidate information across companies, are popularly adopted in the “full-package sourcing network” of the TC industry. Fast fashion
16、 (Sheridan et al. 2006) is another important topic associated with the use of ERP systems in the TC industry. Essentially, fast fashion leads to a more dynamic market with more frequently changing merchandising and purchasing decisions, and hence ERP systems can play a crucial role (Bruce and Daly 2
17、006). ERP systems also provide companies with flexibility and help solve many operational problems such as achieving more coordinated decisions on material resource planning (MRP) and capacity scheduling (Dashy 2006). For the anticipated benefits of ERP systems for the TC industry, Callaway (1999) h
18、as proposed the following comprehensive dimensions: (1) inventory level, (2) personnel,(3) procurement costs, (4) transportation and logistics costs, (5) information technology costs, (6) systems maintenance, (7) productivity, (8) order management, (9) financial cycles, (10) cash management, (11) pr
19、ofits earning, and (12) on-time delivery performance. Other benefits brought by ERP systems in the TC industry are visibility of companys information (such as inventory), increased responsiveness to markets, tightened system coordination, flexibility, and so on. Out of the mentioned advantages of ER
20、P systems, Callaway (1999) has further identified two groups, namely strategic benefits and economic benefits. Nevertheless, implementation of ERP systems can incur hidden costs, and the disadvantages of using ERP systems in the TC supply chains include high costs, long system development cycle, cha
21、llenges in data conversions, the requirements of substantial organizational changes, user resistance, etc. We will discuss more in the following sections. 3 ERP Systems in Textiles and Clothing To learn more about the industrial practices of the implementation and application of ERP systems in the T
22、C industry, we have conducted some interviews as well as reviewed some cases in the literature, and the findings are reported as follows. 3.1 Specific Cases1 Case 1: Company A: A Multi product Cooperation As multiproduct group, Company Adesigns and sells products such as apparels, leather products,
23、watches, foot wears, etc. In 2006, with a goal of optimizing the companys supply chain performance (sourcing capabilities, lead time reduction) and supporting the companys growth in retail business, Company A conducted a large-scale business processing re-engineering and invested substantially in an
24、 ERP solution. The company appointed new information systems director for this project, who aimed to implement an ERP system that can be used and shared by all product categories. A high degree of integration with suppliers was also desirable. However, upon the implementation and changes, the attemp
25、t was deemed as a failure because the supply chain costs were over 50% higher than before, with only a very marginal single-digit increase of revenue recorded. Other problems such as a lack of data transparency and poor migration of data were reported. Finally, the major reasons that accounted for t
26、he failure of Company As ERP system implementation project included the following: a lack of coordination for the project (the project leader and other related parties did not work closely together and most staff members did not get involved at all), top management lacked vision and offered limited
27、support (the top management even failed to tell the staff members the importance of the project), over-ambitious in having all product lines integrated together, failure Enterprise Resource Planning Systems for the Textiles and Clothing Industry to provide the right incentives to involve people in m
28、ultiple disciplines to work together, failure to define roles of participants and goals to achieve. 4 Enabling Technologies In virtually all ERP systems employed in the TC industry, centralized relational databases and secured networks are used as the core technologies to integrate different modules
29、. Under secured networks such as virtual private network (VPN), intranet, and extranet, there are several technology related methods for supporting data integration. 1. A modular, table-driven design allows the ERP implementation in different processes to fit the companys requirements, with flexibil
30、ity and easy adoption to environmental changes. For example, for the trading companies, their business activities mainly focus on the sales, finance, inventory, and distribution. They could use such four modules for ERP implementation. For the production companies, their business activities focus ma
31、inly on production, quality control, and costing, and these three modules of ERP system can be implemented to offer direct helps. Such modular design is widely observed and the majority of the ERP solution providers as listed in Table 1 are adopting this modular approach. 2. For information sharing,
32、 the protocols that are employed include electronic data interchange (EDI) and electronic business extended markup language (eb XML). Traditional ERP systems used in the TC industry, such as the ERP solutions developed by Aria Systems and Cantel Apparel, adopt EDI for data exchange among different c
33、ompanies. Recently, ebXML has been proposed to replace EDI for data exchange. Essentially, ebXML is a set of specifications that enable a modular electronic business framework. The key strength of ebXML is that it can support a global electronic marketplace where enterprises of any size and in any g
34、eographical location can meet and conduct business with each other through he exchange of XML-based messages. 3. An item code structure can be used along the supply chain from yarn spinning to garment production. It is an important element to implement data integration in the TC industry. However, d
35、ifferent ERP solutions developed by different vendors may use different item code structure for implementation. This creates challenges and hence it is desirable to have a compatible and standardized coding system developed by some international organization for solving this problem. 5 Main Barriers
36、 After a full discussion with ten industrialists (including two yarn manufacturers, four fabric manufacturers, and four garment manufacturers) and reviewing various reported cases, it appears to us that the TC industry always strives hard for new product development and efficiency improvement in pro
37、duction and sales with the use of ERP systems. However, various barriers are reported to be especially significant: 1. Production workers at garment factories usually have a habit of keeping their job ticket. This not only increases the factories overtime expenses due to compliance requirement of ex
38、tra compensation but also prohibits the factories from accurately estimating its workers productivity through the ERP system, because the manual operations have not been fully integrated into the system. 2. There is no real-time monitoring in many ERP systems. For example, when there is bottleneck i
39、n certain production steps in the line, the ERP system fails to issue a warning within a short period of time. This finally causes production jam. 3. There is usually no specialized function of the existing TC ERP system, which enables more specialized and in-depth analysis. In reality, a lot of man
40、ufacturers have used other technologies such as simulation techniques and statistical tools for analyzing their production performance. This will significantly increase their running costs. 4. Most existing TC ERP systems (except a few such as DataS ERP solution) support only batch processing but no
41、t the real-time one. This heavily reduces the significance of a truly powerful well integrated real-time ERP system. 5. For some apparel manufacturers, one of the most crucial functional elements of their ERP systems is MRP. However, it is found that a lot of manufacturers, for example, those locate
42、d in China and Hong Kong, still rely heavily on Ms Excel for exporting ERP data to plan for yarn, fabric, accessories, etc. Efficiency is hence low and it is also a big barrier for companies to realize the true benefits of ERP systems. 译文 ERP 在纺织服装产业的应用 资料来源：中国知网 作者： Patrick C.L. 摘要：纺织品和服装行业 (TC)以其在
43、劳动、原材料、产品、资本、以及库存管理上的高度密集而知名。如今，企业 TC 供应链已经应用了一种为提高效率和不同的业务流程之间的效果的技术。值得一提的是，该企业资源计划 (ERP)系统实施的相当广泛，并且已被证明是许多 TC 公司成功的关键。本文探讨 ERP 系统的应用，通过学习不 同公司的案例和回顾一些实际的 ERP 解决方案来探讨各自在 TC 供应链的关键技术。此外，还介绍了 ERP 系统在 TC 行业面临的主要障碍。讨论了 ERP 系统成功实施的各种关键因素。根据得出的结论探索了一些未来的发展方向。 关键词：企业资源计划 管理信息系统 供应链管理 纺织品和服装 1 介绍 前所未有的信息与
44、通信技术的发展，对众多在纺织品服装 (TC)行业以计算的公司而言有各方面的影响。与此同时，商业环境变得越来越复杂，功能部件为应对及时高效的采购产品零件，库存管理，会计，人力资源，以及产品和优质服务的配送，需要越来越多的 在 TC 供应链上的内部功能性数据流。为了应付这些挑战， ERP 系统成了一种解决方案，它已经被广泛应用，特别是一些规模较大的纺织服装公司。 2 文献 TC 工业的供应链是高度动态的，在不同的阶段对信息沟通有不同的要求。在文献中，信息共享方案能有效地对抗挑战是众所周知的，例如牛鞭效应的供应链。为提高信息共享和其他重要操作，许多 TC 公司应用了公司集中企业资源计划系统作为一个解
45、决方案 (Callaway 1999)。实施 ERP 系统的一个主要目的是实现无论是对公司还是整个产业的集成和协调，这将会导致成本的降低，从而使盈利提高 (Koch et al. 1999)。随着成功实施 ERP 系统，其影响是巨大的，但是这并没有成功的保证 (Stefanie 1999)，它指出 ERP 系统的有效实施与相适应的业务流程重组 (BPR)方案是密切相关的。特别是，已经实施 ERP 系统的 TC 公司应该转变从功能到跨职能的企业间的操作模式。在许多案例中，用于公司更先进的是信息的需求，一个“灵活的、完整性、模块化的” (见 Stefanie(1999)更多 )系统被用于支持从供应
46、链上游到下游的活动。众所周知，公司实施 ERP 系统的目的是实现公司不同方面的改善 (Callaway1999)。例如，通过更多协调应用于同一个公司可以提高供应链 (Callaway 1999)和 /或与渠道成员之间，用一个无缝的流动和信息分享（ Glenn 2008），这些对 TC 行业的公司而言是相关的且极其重要的。在文献中， ERP 系统对 TC 供应链管理的重要性已经被开发了。在 Au and Ho (2002)里，有人认为 ERP 系统可以通过允许实现电子商务模型来支持 TC 行业，它帮助转变成一个“集成供应链”。另外，不同于其他许多产业的第三方物流模式， 在TC 行业的一个“购买者
47、驱动商品链”正在被广泛观察，商品链引发 高成本，以及更好的供应链管理是可取的。 Giraffe (1999)观察到 ERP 系统，用它们来巩固信息，被广泛采用在 TC 产业的“一级采购网络”。快速时装 (Sheridan et al.2006)是另一个在 TC 产业使用 ERP 系统的相关的重要课题。从本质上讲，快速时装导致一种更加灵活多变的市场提供更频繁的改变促销的关注和采购决策， ERP系统在这里扮演着一个至关重要的角色 (Bruce and Daly2006)。 ERP 系统也为客户提供灵活性和帮助解决许多操作问题，如能达到多种协调决定制造资源规划(MRP)和能力调度 （ Dashy 2
48、006）。为 TC 产业 ERP系统的预期利益 Callaway (1999)提出了以下综合标准： (1)库存水平， (2)人员， (3)采购成本， (4)运输和物流成本，(5)信息技术成本， (6)系统的维护， (7)生产力， (8)订单管理， (9)经济周期， (10)现金管理， (11)利润获得、 (12)准时交货性能。其他在 ERP 系统所带来的效益的可见性的 TC 产业企业的信息 (如库存 )，增加了对市场的掌控，并加紧了系统协调、灵活性等等。上面提到的 ERP 系统的优势， Callaway (1999)已经进一步确认了两组，即战略效益和经济效益。然而，实施 ERP 系统会招致隐藏
49、的费用，使用 ERP 系统的缺点在 TC 供应链包括高成本、长系统的开发周期，挑战要求数据转换的实质组织的变化，用户的抵制，等等。我们将在接下来的章节讨论。 3 ERP 系统在纺织品和服装 想要了解更多的关于工业实践中的应用和 ERP 系统在 TC 产业的实施，我们已进行了一些访谈以及一些案例的回顾文献，所得发现如下。 3.1 具体案例 1 例 1：公司 A： 一个复合产品合作 作为一个集团， A 公司设计并销售那些像服饰，皮革制品，表，鞋类，等等的产品。在 2006 年，优化公司的供应链绩效（采购能力，交货期减少）和支持公司在零售业务的发展为目标， A 公司进行了大规模的业务流程重组和投资一个ERP 解决方案。公司为这个项目指定了一个新的信息系统导演，目标在于使 ERP系统可以用于所有产品的分类。高度的整合与供应商也是可取的。不过，在实施中，这个尝试被视为一个失败，因为供应链成本比以前高 50%以上，只有一个非常边际的单位有所增长。另外的问题如数据的透明度和迁移数据被报道。最后，使 A 公司 ERP 系统实施失败的包括以下几点：缺乏协调该项目 (这个项目领导者和其他相关的政党没有共同工
