The Harvard Center for Textile and Apparel Research originally focused on the competitive dynamics of the retail-apparel-textile channel—in particular, how technological innovations and information technology are transforming the way retailers plan and order apparel merchandise, and in turn, the way manufacturers forecast demand, plan production, and manufacture and distribute apparel products.
A book based on this research, A Stitch in Time, Lean Retailing & the Transformation of Manufacturing: Lessons from the Apparel and Textile Industries incorporates predictive and prescriptive insights about information-integrated channels in a variety of consumer product industries. Published in 1999, the book predicted many of the changes in supply chain dynamics and challenges facing producers that arose in subsequent years.
Researchers at the Center have created models for evaluating the impact of manufacturing lead times on channel profitability, critical to the development of new planning and sourcing strategies. In addition, they have developed advanced computing techniques to increase the efficiency of existing apparel pattern layouts for automatically making these markers.
The Center has expanded its area of research to include the competitive dynamics of large-scale builders of residential homes. As with the retail-apparel-textile channel—the focus is how technological innovations and information technology are improving the efficiency of homebuilders.
The Center has also examined public policy implications, including how international trade policies affect the future location and growth of the global apparel and textile industries and how conditions for apparel workers might be improved through regulation and monitoring.
Funded since 1990 by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, the Center draws its members from Arts and Sciences, the Business School, and other faculties of Harvard University, Boston University, and the University of Miami.
RECENT RESEARCH
Labor Regulations
David Weil has been leading a research project on how industry structure influences compliance with workplace regulations. Building on work on labor standard enforcement in the garment industry, Weil and a research team are undertaking studies of other industry-based approaches to workplace regulation. These studies look at opportunities for improving regulatory performance at a national and international level at a time when government resources for improving conditions are very limited. Download the Report to the U.S. Labor Department.
An article by Weil entitled "A Strategic Approach to Labour Inspection" appeared in a recent International Labour Review.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Residential Construction Industry
The documents used in our 2005 survey of the residential homebuilding industry have just been released. These document are available for downloading. There is a separate corporate survey and a separate divisional survey.
JUST PUBLISHED
Bigger Isn’t Necessarily Better: Lessons from the Harvard Home Builder Study, a new book written by HCTAR members Abernathey, Weil, Baker, and Colton, is now available. It examines the performance and operation of the US home-building sector based on a detailed survey of large home builders conducted by the authors during the building boom of the 2000s. It looks at the consolidation of the industry and missed opportunities for innovation, and includes a discussion on the what home builders could learn from other industries.
More information. Find it on Amazon.
Textiles Apparel & Retailing
Using Flexible Supply Options offers retailers a new and innovative way to reduce their financial risk with fashion apparel. HCTAR has made presentations of FSOs to [TC]2, and many other organizations. A recent PowerPoint presentation made to Unite Here! and a leading apparel firm is in the publications list along with the Dr. Anthony P. Volpe’s Ph.D. thesis that gives a full development of the idea and its theoretical basis.
A new book The Market Makers: How Retailers are Reshaping the Global Economy edited by Gary Hamilton of the University of Washington is in final stages of publication. A Chapter of the book titled Technology, Public Policy, and Retailing written by HCTAR authors Abernathy and Volpe can be found here.
