Hazır giyim perakende sektöründe içsel kıyaslama çalışmasına bir örnek
A case study for internal benchmarking of textile apparel retail industry
Yazar: ASLI AKSOY
Danışman: PROF. DR. FATMA KALAOĞLU
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Tekstil Mühendisliği Ana Bilim Dalı
Derece: Yüksek Lisans, 2013
Konu: Tekstil ve Tekstil Mühendisliği = Textile and Textile Engineering
Dizin: Analitik hiyerarşi süreci = Analytical hierarchy process ; Benchmarking = Benchmarking ; Kalite fonksiyon yayılımı = Quality function deployment

Özet:
Çalışmada, birçok sektörde yaygın şekilde kullanılan kıyaslama (benchmarking) yöntemi, Türkiye? de hızla gelişen perakende sektöründe uygulanmıştır. Türkiye perakende sektöründe lider bir firmada içsel (internal) kıyaslama çalışması uygulanarak, firmadaki farklı departmanların sahip olduğu müşteri memnuniyet dereceleri belirlenmiş ve iyileştirilmesi gereken iş süreçleri tespit edilmiştir. Çalışmanın yapıldığı firma yurt içinde ve yurt dışında toplam 350 den fazla mağazaya sahip olup, 2milyar TL ciroya sahip Türkiye? nin önde gelen tekstil perakende markalarından biridir. Marka çocuk, bayan, erkek giyim ve aksesuar ürün gruplarına sahip olup, orta düzeyde müşteri kitlesine hitap eden bir ürün ve fiyat yelpazesine sahiptir. Yapılan internal (içsel) kıyaslama çalışmasıyla firma içerisinde, uygulanan süreçler ve hedef müşteri kitlesi bakımından birbirine çok yakın bulunan, aynı iş süreçlerine fakat farklı yönetim basamaklarına sahip bayan ve kız çocuk departmanları, ürün performansları açısından karşılaştırılmış, farklılıkları tespit edilip iyileştirilmesi gereken süreçler belirlenmiştir.Çalışma kapsamında, gelişen perakende sektörü ve artan rakip sayısı sebebiyle her geçen gün çoğalan müşteri beklentileri, bu beklentileri karşılayan iş süreçleri ve bu iş süreçlerinden oluşan teknik karakteristikler tespit edilmiştir. İyileştirme sürecini kısaltmak ve kolaylaştırmak amacıyla hangi iş süreçlerinin son kullanıcı için daha öncelikli olduğu AHP (Analitik Hiyerarşi Prosesi) yönteminin uygulanması ile belirlenmiştir. Hiyerarşik yapıda düzenlenen ve toplamda 3 seviyeden oluşan müşteri istekleri AHP yöntemi ile önem derecesi bakımından incelenmiştir. Birinci seviye `hedef? ve ikinci seviye 'Kalite', 'Fiyat', 'Zaman', 'Moda-çeşitlilik-tasarım' ve 'Hizmet'olarak tanımlanmıştır. Üçüncü seviye ise 'Ürünlerin dayanıklılığı', Ürün renk haslıklarının yüksekliği', Ürün baskı ve aksesuarlarının kalitesinin yüksek olması', Ürünlerin ekolojik standartlara uygunluğu', Model ve aksesuarların çocuk güvenliğine uygunluğu', Ürün fiyat kalite dengesinin uyumu', Ürün fiyatlarının rakiplere göre uygunluğu', İndirim döneminde fiyat aralığının uygunluğu', Promosyon faaliyetlerinin yeterliliği (2 al 1 öde, set halinde ürün) ', Talep halinde ürünün mağazaya gönderim kolaylığı', Sezon başlarında yeni sezona ait ürünlerin mağazada bulunma durumu', Ürün beden ölçülerinin uygunluğu', Model kalıplarınınuygunluğu', Ürün model çeşitliliğinin fazlalığı', Ürün renk çeşitliliğinin fazlalığı', 'Koleksiyonun moda ve trendlere uygunluğu', 'Koleksiyonda yıl bazında değişimlerin çokluğu', 'Katalog ürünlerine mağazada ulaşma derecesi', 'Katalog bilgilerinin güvenilirliği', 'Mağaza ürün yerleşiminin doğruluğu ve kombinlerin uygunluğu' ve 'Ürünlerin satış sonrası değiştirilebilme olanağı' adlı kriterlerden oluşmuştur. Uygulama sonucunda, ?Katalog bilgilerinin güvenilirliği?, ?Mağaza ürün yerleşiminin doğruluğu ve kombinlerin uygunluğu?, ?Talep halinde ürünün mağazaya gönderim kolaylığı? ve ?Sezon başlarında yeni sezona ait ürünlerin xviiimağazada bulunma durumu? adlı müşteri beklentilerinin yüksek önem derecesine sahip olduğu tespit edilmiştir.Müşteri istekleriyle ilişkili olan teknik karakteristikler her bir ürün grubunun iş süreçleri göz önüne alınarak 'Satınalma', 'Tasarım', 'Üretim', 'Planlama' ve 'Hizmet'adlı ana başlıklar ve 'Fiyat belirlenmesi', Maliyet belirlenmesi', Üretim takibi', Ham madde onay süreci (test dahil)', Üretimde kalite kontrol', Son kontrol', Sevkiyat', Rekabet analizi', 'İndirim dönemi koleksiyonunun belirlenmesi', Katalog için kombinlerin oluşturulması', Sezon modellerinde trend belirlenmesi', Sezon renklerinde trend belirlenmesi', Beden ölçülerinin oluşturulması ', Kalıp hazırlanması', Koleksiyon sayısının planlanması', Depo-mağaza sevkiyat planlaması', 'Ürün adet planlaması', Promosyon planı ', Satış sonrası hizmetlerin planlanması' ve Vitrin tasarımı' adlı alt başlıklar olarak belirlenmiştir.Uygulamada ayrıca kıyaslama çalışmasının belli bir plan kapsamında uygulamasını sağlamak amacıyla KFY (Kalite Fonksiyon Yayılımı) yöntemi kullanılmıştır. KFY yöntemi ile kıyaslama çalışmasının belli bir prosedür izlenerek uygulanması ve yöntemin yapısından dolayı kıyaslama çalışmasının direk olarak gerçekleştirilmesi sağlanmıştır. Kıyaslama çalışması uygulamanın yapıldığı Kız çocuk ve Bayan departmanlarının müşteri beklentileri ile ilgili sahip oldukları müşteri memnuniyet derecelerinin belirlenmesi için uygulanan anket çalışmasına ait sonuçlar dikkate alınarak yapılmıştır. Uygulama kapsamında departmanlara ait müşteri memnuniyet dereceleri göz önüne alınarak KFY yönteminde tespit edilen mutlak ağırlık değerlerine ve müşteri istekleri önem derecelerine göre `Ürünlerin dayanıklılığı?, 'Ürün baskı ve aksesuarlarının kalitesinin yüksek olması', `Talep halinde ürünün mağazaya gönderim kolaylığı?, `Sezon başlarında yeni sezona ait ürünlerin mağazada bulunma durumu?, `Ürün beden ölçülerinin uygunluğu?, `Ürün model çeşitliliğinin fazlalığı?, `Ürün renk çeşitliliğinin fazlalığı?, 'Katalog ürünlerine mağazada ulaşma derecesi', 'Katalog bilgilerinin güvenilirliği', `Mağaza ürün yerleşiminin doğruluğu ve kombinlerin uygunluğu?, `Ürünlerin satış sonrası değiştirilebilme olanağı?, `Ürün fiyatlarının rakiplere göre uygunluğu?, 'İndirim döneminde fiyat aralığının uygunluğu', `Promosyon faaliyetlerinin yeterliliği? ve `Koleksiyonun moda ve trendlere uygunluğu? adlı müşteri beklentilerinin ve ilişkili oldukları teknik karakteristiklerin Bayan departmanı için iyileştirilmesi gerektiği sonucu elde edilmiştir.

Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to provide a framework for an internal benchmarking process in an apparel retail company in order to improve the business functions that serve increasing customer satisfaction. To this aim, benchmarking process, which has been commonly used for the purpose of improvement through performance comparison in many industries so far, has been applied on fast growing textile retail industry in conjunction with QFD (Quality Function Deployment) and AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) in order to compare different product groups performance, define to areas which have different performance level and determine how they can be improved.The literature survey showed that the literature lacks the study of benchmarking applied in apparel business, but the benchmarking process can be achieved systematically following the steps of QFD procedure which was initially proposed for planning for a new product. QFD method provided to identify customer expectation about production or service and help companies to improve their process according to customer requirement. Customer expectations were defined detailly in applications steps of QFD. Secondly, technical characteristics were identified according to company procedures. According to company procedures, relations between customer expectations and technical characteristics and their degrees were determined. At the same time importance degree of each customer requirements werebe defined. Beside this, the research in the literature confirmed that AHP provides numerical values and analysis regarding the determination of customer priorities in the establishment of quality house within the application of quality function deployment technique. Customer requirements and their subtitles were simply examined with hierarchical form of AHP. Problem was divided subtitles with AHP, so each subtitles were examined detailly with this basic form and priority of each alternatives was determined. Objective and subjective evaluations of customers were commented together with using AHP. In this research, because of the all these advantages and hierarchic structure of customer expectations, AHP was used to determine priorities of each customer expectations.The study was established for an apparel retail company which offers mens? wear, womens? wear and kids? wear. This company, one of the biggest Turkish textile brand, has 2 billion TL annual return and more than 350 stores. The girls and women department were chosen as the departments for which the internal benchmarking process was applied. Having same customer profiles and same production process were primary causes to choose these departments for internal benchmarking process. The framework used for the achievement of internal benchmarking application involved 8 steps, which were `Identification of customer expectations?, `Identification of technical characteristics?, `Determination of the relationship between customer expectations and technical procedures?, xx`Determination of the importance levels of each customer expectations?, `Comparison of performance levels of two departments?, `Analysis of quality house?, `Determination of the customer expectation and technical procedures in concern? and `Suggestions for process improvement respectively?. In practice, customer expectations were identified with three levels. First level was defined as subject. Second level was defined as 'Price', 'Timeliness or flexibility', 'Fashion, design and variety', and 'Service provided by the store'. Third level was defined as 'Quality-price balance (Paying in accord with the quality of product)', 'Price attractiveness (Paying less for the product with respective to identical products)', 'Discount price interval appropriateness (The suitability of the gap between season price and discount price)', 'Promotional activities qualification (buy 2 pay 1,etc)', 'Shipment to store on demand (The availability of the retailer to call the ordered product into the store)', 'Availability of brand new product at the beginning of the seasons', 'Fitness of patterns (The convenience of the styles to body proportions)', 'Fitness of patterns sizes (The fitness of the cloth to different sized people)', 'Style options variety (Availability of various styles)', 'Color options variety (Availability of various colors)', 'Harmony with fashion and trends (The convenience of the collection concept with the trends of season)', 'Annual divergences in collection (Identification of new concepts for each season)', 'Accessibility to catalog products at store (The availability of whole product range in all stores)', 'Credibility of catalog informations (Accessability of each product with the price specified in the catalog)', 'Correct settlement of products and accurate combines (Presenting alternatives to the customers in terms of creating combines)', 'Return or changeover after sales (The ease of the changeovers and providing guarantees'.Moreover, technical characteristics, related with these customer expectations, were identified as two levels according to department processes and their job description. First level was defined as 'Buying', 'Design', 'Production', 'Planning', and 'Service'.Second level was defined as 'Identification of selling price', 'Identification of cost', 'Production following up', 'Approving of raw materials (including all testing procedures)', 'Quality control at production', 'Final controlling', 'Shipment', 'Competitor analyze', 'Identification of discount period collection', 'Define to combines for catalogue', 'Trend identification on season's styles', 'Trend identification on season's colors', 'Identification of body measurements', 'Preparation of pattern', 'Plan to number of collection', 'Plan shipment from warehouse to store', 'Plan to order quantity', 'Plan to promotion', 'Plan to after service', and 'Visual organization'.In this study, importance of each customer expectations was defined with a survey study that was prepared according to AHP to determine which expectations are more important than others. According to this survey results, importance of technical characteristics have been calculated. Survey results showed that `Credibility of catalog information (Accessibility of each product with the price specified in the catalog)?, `Correct settlement of products and accurate combines (Presenting alternatives to the customers in terms of creating combines)?, `Shipment to store on demand (The availability of the retailer to call the ordered product into the store)? and `Availability of brand new product at the beginning of the seasons? had higherimportance level than the other customer expectations.In practice, relations and their degrees between customer expectations and technical characteristics were defined with expert of related departments on company. xxiAccording to these relations, technical characteristic which name was `Buying? hadmore strong relations with customer expectations than other criteria. Similarly, second level customer expectation which name was `Price? had more strong relations with technical characteristics than other parameters.The comparison of performance levels for two departments was achieved based on the outputs got from the survey, in which a questionnaire requiring the attendants to state their satisfaction levels for each of their expectation was used. The survey was conducted among the women with children and each participant answered 2 questionnaires; one for her kid and the other for herself. Girls department was found to be showing higher performance in most customer expectation field. All surveys have been checked with sensitivity analysis and results of 53 surveys have been used on the study. According to results of these surveys, girls department had higher customer satisfaction level than ladies department for all customer expectation parameters. Results showed that ladies department?s performance should be improved with examine to related processes of girls department. Moreover, huge differences were observed between surveys results of these two departments on criteria which are 'Fitness of patterns (The convenience of the styles to body proportions)', 'Fitness of patterns sizes (The fitness of the cloth to different sized people)', 'Style options variety ( Availability of various styles)', 'Color options variety (Availability of various colors)', 'Harmony with fashion and trends ( The convenience of the collection concept with the trends of season)' and 'Correct settlement of products and accurate combines ( Presenting alternatives to the customers in terms of creating combines)'. The outputs of these two surveys were taken as in inputs for the application of QFD which provided the determination of the critical technical procedures that should be carefully controlled and improved. All evaluations on quality house and benchmarking process were made according to these results so, `customer voice? was spread over on each company process to improve performance degree.Finally, some suggestions about the technical procedures and improvements in meeting higher customer satisfaction were explained in detail under the titles of customer expectations which were `Durability (Strength and long useful life of product)?, 'Print and accessorizes? durability (Long useful life of the print and accessorizes)', `Shipment to store on demand (The availability of the retailer to call the ordered product into the store)?, `Availability of brand new product at the beginning of the seasons?, `Fitness of patterns sizes (The fitness of the cloth to different sized people)?, `Style options variety (Availability of various styles)?, `Color options variety (Availability of various colors)?, 'Accessibility to catalogproducts at store (The availability of whole product range in all stores)', 'Credibility of catalog info?s (Accessibility of each product with the price specified in the catalog)', `Correct settlement of products and accurate combines (Presenting alternatives to the customers in terms of creating combines)?, `Return or changeover after sales (The ease of the changeovers and providing guarantees)?, `Price attractiveness?, 'Discount price interval appropriateness (The suitability of the gap between season price and discount price)', `Promotional activities qualification (buy 2 pay 1,etc)? and `Harmony with fashion and trends ( The convenience of the collection concept with the trends of season)?.Based on these, the company in concern was suggested to monitor quality and follow test procedures precisely. Each product component should be tested before xxiiproduction and their application should be checked on production. Moreover, at the end of the production, ready garments? quality should be controlled carefully to avoid any defected samples at order. The sizes and seam tolerances should be reviewed in order to improve the fit characteristics. To avoid any pattern and size problem on garment, designs should be checked with some samples before the production. Additionally, increasing the number of sizes provides to decrease measurement tolerances, so garments which have out of the tolerances measurements can be avoid at order. Number of combines should be increased and paid attention for displaying of them. Stores should be controlled frequently to be sure true application of combines on stores. Selling values of same season should be checked closely for improving of color and style range quantity of each style at collection and diversity of collection. According to best and fast seller styles and their selling period information next season collections should be planned. Competitors should be analyzed in detail and cost of each style with their all components should be examined to improve selling price. Within this case, the company obtained reliable analysis with well determined initiative.