After the class on Supply Chain Management I was very interested in further understanding Zara’s supply chain and digging deeper into why the company is so successful.

I never saw Zara (a store close to my heart) as anything “special,” but now I see what exactly makes their supply chain so unique, and in turn leads to their success- “One day it’s in and the next day it’s out”.

After researching, the main reasons for their supply chain success are:

1. Quick response to demand: Zara creates up to 1000 designs every month based on store sales and current trends.

This makes sense as they can then produce accordingly, and iterate on their prospective designs.

2. Small batch productions: Zara produces small numbers of quantities for every product, which gives them the opportunity to quickly understand what designs are successful.

In retrospect, I definitely see this now. Every time i’d go to a store three days after I saw something I wanted, it would be gone.

3. Central distribution center: All of Zara’s clothing is shipped back to spain (central location) and from there it’s distributed to different countries based on the local requirments of those countries.

This illustrates Zara’s strong IT systems that back up it’s distribution.

Source:

http://cmuscm.blogspot.ca/2012/09/fashion-forward-zaras-supply-chain.html