Developing information sharing model using cloud computing and smart devices for SMEs supply chain: A case in fashion retail

Abstract

The mismatch between supply and demand always exists within the supply chain and among retail stores. This situation is even worse for SMEs who work without state-of-the-art technologies, especially in terms of quantitative demand and size distribution in fashion industry. In this paper, we develop a cloud computing and smart device (CCSD) model to address the stochastic deviation between supply and demand. A computational experiment proves that the performance of inventory management in the supply chain and among retail stores can be significantly improved by application of CCSD, irrespective of demand and size distribution. In this paper, we illustrate its benefits for both normal and right-skewed demand distribution. We find that different stages in supply chain can also be coordinated by using the CCSD platform. The results show that using all-channel communication network through CCSD increases the information sharing performance.