Impact of COVID-19 on the textile, apparel and fashion manufacturing industry supply chain: Case study on a ready-made garment manufacturing industry

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Abstract: Over the past few months, the world has witnessed how the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the supply chain of the textile, apparel and fashion manufacturing (TAFM) industry in various unprecedented ways. As the global textile market is interconnected, this outbreak has a global impact due to travel restrictions and raw materials shortages. This study highlights the imminent impact of COVID-19 on the TAFM industry supply chain, focusing on root-cause analysis and statistical data on consumption of textile goods, both locally and globally. There has not been any academic research on TAFM supply chain disruption. This paper has fulfilled this research gap. Our research is a two-fold study. The first part reviews the overall impact of the pandemic on the TAFM industry and conducts a text analysis on the statements collected from business reports, academic journals, market researchers’ opinions, manufacturers’ statements and business journals, in order to identify the most frequently used terms associated with supply chain disruption. The second part is a case study on a ready-made garment (RMG) industry in Bangladesh, which showed that the supply chain disruption due to COVID-19 would increase the production cost. This is alarming for garment manufacturers and exporters, as the worldwide apparel consumption is also projected to reduce during and after the pandemic. Lastly, this study forecasts the takeaways of the TAFM industry from this global pandemic and recommends a mathematical model to tackle any similar situation in future.

Keywords: COVID-19; supply chain; textiles and apparel industry; fashion manufacturing industry; global impact