The Impacts and Implications of Advancing Technology on Fast Fashion Supply Chains

Fast fashion is one of the biggest players in the fashion industry today. It is characterized by volatile demand, fast lead times, short product lifecycles, and high consumption. To fit the demands of the industry, they have adapted agile and flexible supply chains to produce the latest styles as quickly as possible. This kind of supply chain has been enabled by technological advances over the past two decades. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, RFID technology, and ERP systems have been the main technologies driving this industry and enabling its supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to address each of these technologies and their impacts on the fast fashion industry. It also addresses how these technologies can be integrated into the creation of the smart factory and how they can be applied to fast fashion supply chains as part of the fourth industrial revolution, known as I4.0.