Towards a digital revolution in the UK apparel manufacturing: an Industry 4.0 perspective

The study explores the potential for developing a virtual distributed manufacturing network for UK apparel manufacturing using a simulation approach for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The digitalisation is based upon enabling an equitable order allocation system (sharing/dividing) amongst the SMEs to ensure the apparel manufacturers’ survival. The ultimate solution provides potential models which can provide proper production planning and scheduling service in developing strong networks. For the scheduling service, the factories are required to upload capacity available to the private cloud server; retailers load orders to cloud services while the virtual factory scheduler service (VFSS) allocates and optimise work across factories. The current study provides an overview using mixed methods. Arena® software together with the synthetic data were utilised to simulate a model for a single retailer to multiple manufacturers. Thus, through the simulation approach as a component of Industry 4.0, it is possible to perform order allocation equitably.