H & M Supply Chain Analysis

Indeed, there has been occasions to distinguish logistics from supply chain management, to make logistics be a subset of supply chain management (Ballou, 2006). This is in line with the unionist view which seeks to show that Logistics is a subset of Supply Chain Management differing from the views of traditionalist, intersectionist and re-labelling proponents. Thus in the description and mapping of the selected company; H&M the unionist view will be held throughout.

The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP; www.cscmp.org) defines logistics management as “that part of the supply chain management that plans, implements and controls the efficient, effective forward and reverse flow and storage of goods, services, and related

According to Chow and Heaver (1999), a supply chain is “a group of manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, retailers and transportation, information and other logistics management service providers that are engaged in providing goods to consumers. A Supply Chain comprises both the external and internal associates for the corporate”. From the above definition, it can be seen that supply chain is about various players which are found both inside and outside a firm who come together to ensure satisfaction of

These countries make up the first tier supplier; Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Luxembourg, Myanmar, Netherland, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, USA and Vietnam. The first tier suppliers are divided into manufacturing factories and processing factories. The manufacturing factories or cut and sew factories are ones that produce the normal clothes and the processing factories produce clothes with prints, washing, embroideries etc. The second tier suppliers are referred to as the Fabric and Yarn suppliers which include countries like Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey, hence this makes up the upstream aspect of the supply chain.

In H&M ‘s supply chain they have put in place a link between the focal company and the suppliers and they refer to them as the merchandisers. Their role is to identify the right suppliers that H&M must place orders from and they are based in 21 production offices in Asia and Europe.

Another aspect of the supply chain is their transportation system. Currently the sea or rail is the main mode of H&M’s transportation from supplier to distribution centres and relies very little on road transport. But when the need arises they try to use the best truck routing