Optimal Scheduling, Coordination, and the Value of RFID Technology in Garment Manufacturing Supply Chains

Motivated by industrial practices, we explore in this paper the optimal supply chain scheduling problem in garment manufacturing with the consideration of coordination and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. We consider the case in which a garment manufacturer receives orders from multiple retailers, and needs to determine the optimal order set to take and the corresponding optimal production schedule. We model the problem as a flowshop scheduling problem, uncover its structural properties, and prove that the problem is NP-hard in the ordinary sense only. We contribute by first developing a practical and effective pseudopolynomial dynamic programming algorithm to find the globally optimal solution in reasonable time; second, proposing an implementable method to achieve win-win supply chain coordination; and third, showing the good performance of RFID technology deployment. We further determine the critical threshold value of the order number with which the total manufacturing capacity must be increased if companies in the supply chain wish to improve their profits.