Abstract
As a part of the study of "overseas-brand" and "domestic" apparel inventory control strategies utilising computer simulation. the work conducted in this paper is concerned with the investigation of one of the case study apparel organisations, company B, supplied with locally manufactured products in South Korea (refer to the "overseas-brand" apparel entrepreneur, company A, in part 1). The aim of the research was to explore the issues associated with the production and distribution of apparel products to improve the understanding of the interrelation of domestic apparel production-distribution system factors. The goal to develop the optimum inventory control strategies for domestic apparel companies was achieved by the use of a computer simulation model developed based on the specific apparel supply chain environment. The data derived from the two, selected case study companies' activities can be referred to in the previous studies [1-3], that also explained the development of a computer simulation model of apparel production-distribution strategies and the application of simulation to the selected overseas-brand garment inventory control strategies. In this paper, the key production-distribution functions, e.g. the "domestic" company's stock level control strategies were examined within the simulation model developed to determine optimum strategies by exploring the interactions of the defined apparel production-distribution parameters and their relative contributions within the given system. The experiments further demonstrated the benefits of the simulation models to devise strategies to improve the apparel inventory control as well as the production-distribution chain control performance. As the dominant factor within the total costs was the product cost (refer to appendix 1), maximising gross margins was critically dependent on ordering and re-ordering appropriate product quantity to maintain service levels while monitoring the stock level not too much to incur excess costs.