Management of Inventories in Textile Industry: a Cross Country Research Review

Inventory constitutes a major component of working capital. To a large extent, the success and failure of a business depends upon its inventory management performance. The basic objective of inventory management is to optimize the size of inventory in a firm so that smooth performance of production and sales function may be possible at minimum cost. Galloping inventories in recent years, the credit squeeze and the resultant general paucity of funds have attracted the attention of planning elite on this crucial problem of inventories. Mismanagement of inventories and absence of control systems have resulted in deplorable performance for some of the industries in developing economies. Though, an abundance of literature, methods, models and computer analysis have evolved from time to time and are highly availed of in the realms of industrial settings with greater pay-off of quality, precision and non-blockade of working capital. The paper is aimed to study how inventories in textile sector are managed across the globe. An attempt will be made to summarize and present the theories, techniques and important concepts of inventory management especially in textile sector. As Textile industries have been playing an important role for the socio-economic development of any country. The paper will attempt to unravel the research findings on management of Inventories in textile industry across the world. Studying inventory management becomes all the more important in view of the fact that it is the largest employer with a total workforce of 35 million. Moreover, the share of textiles in total exports was 11.04 % during 2010. India is the world’s 2 largest producer of textiles and garments after China.