Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritise the success factors and challenges related to competitive manufacturing (CM) capabilities in a high-cost environment, and identify their potential to support future reshoring in textile and clothing (T&C) supply chains, with judgements from the practitioners’ perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

A Delphi study method is adopted with industry practitioners from the region of Western Sweden. Following a literature review on reshoring to identify relevant factors related to CM capabilities, a multiple round Delphi is designed to rank the success factors and challenges, and to further evaluate the likelihood of the success factors to lead to future reshoring. Additional semi-structured interviews are conducted to provide deeper explanation.

Findings

Empirical insights are both conforming to, and deviant from, evidences from extant literature. Moderate agreement is seen among the practitioners on the success factors; time- and product/process-related ones being ranked the highest. Low consensus is reached for the challenges, however, those related to high costs and lack of local resources were key concerns. Some anomalies from previous conception emerge among the challenges regarding increased costs of production, inventory and product variety trade-offs, and low skillset presence.

Research limitations/implications

The paper contributes to reshoring research by identifying and prioritising value-driven success factors and cost-related challenges to CM in high-cost environments, for labour-intensive T&C industries. In connection, some interesting paradoxes originate when dealing with multiple success factors.

Practical implications

Valuable insights are generated for informed decision making related to CM and future choice of its location.

Originality/value

Along with the decisive knowledge of the reshoring success factors and challenges, the study offers an interesting T&C practitioners’ perspective.

Discussions on manufacturing competitiveness and relocation to high-cost contexts haveemphasised the importance of differentiation through product quality, speed, andcustomisation. While some dedicated literature reviews and research to date haveaddressed topics such as mass customisation or network configuration in general, theholistic view of network configuration choices regarding this context is under-researched.To approach this topic, this paper systematically reviews literature related to small series(customised/demand-driven) production in high-cost contexts using a supply networkconfiguration (SNC) perspective. 149 refereed articles including configurationinterrelationships were analysed based on descriptive characteristics, elements of SNCwith associated configuration aspects, and specific interrelationships between theidentified aspects. The findings show the overall importance of the value structureemphasising multiple desired outcomes such as customisation, responsiveness andquality, which are enabled by various product, operational, relational and structuralcharacteristics with associated synergies, trade-offs and contingencies. Emerging topicsinclude sustainability and innovation, which are found to be closely related to severalwell-represented aspects. Future research should empirically address configurationinterrelationships, potentially benefiting from mixed-methods approaches and explicittheoretical underpinnings. The findings indicate that decision-makers must take intoaccount a number of interrelationships and contingencies to configure small seriesproduction in high-cost contexts

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse interrelationships among capabilities/priorities and supply network configuration (SNC) for small series production within high-cost textile/apparel contexts. Seventeen configuration and capability-related aspects were identified from the literature, and modelled using a convergent mixed-method approach, with a balanced quantitative and qualitative approach (to identify and interpret interrelationships). Specifically, total interpretive structural modelling (TISM) method is used to determine interrelationships individually and in aggregate, with MICMAC analysis to summarize individual results. Respondents are from a variety of EU textile/apparel companies undertaking small series production/sourcing. The results show interrelationships among configuration/capability aspects, including tight linkages among multiple capabilities, product, process, and structural aspects, and the driving power of relational characteristics. Internal and customer integration are at higher levels in contrast with low levels of supplier integration, except with greater extents of customization or variety. Key challenges are found to result from locations, and the need to balance several capabilities, e.g. quality and sustainable innovation. The findings can guide practitioners throughout the value chain in evaluating and changing their SNC in relation to capabilities/motivations. Although generalisability of the modelling results is limited by focusing on a single industry, methods can be used in different contexts.