SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING APPROACHES TO APPAREL SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCE IN THE U.S. CONTEXT

Abstract

This PRISMA-aligned systematic review synthesizes industrial engineering approaches that strengthen resilience in apparel supply chains serving the United States. Searches across Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, ProQuest, and Google Scholar for 2005 to 2020 identified 115 peer-reviewed studies that met inclusion criteria. Evidence was coded by intervention family, disruption class, echelon, method, validation, and standardized outcomes that reflect resilience performance, notably service level under stress, time-to-recover, lead-time variance, backlog duration, lost sales, and cost-to-serve. The corpus concentrates on six lever families. Inventory science with postponement and multi-echelon control was the largest share and produced the most reliable service improvements, typically shifting differentiation downstream to pool uncertainty and compress variance. Robust, chance-constrained, and distributionally robust optimization reduced tail risk and stabilized performance under parameter ambiguity common in fashion calendars. Network and sourcing design, especially dual or multi-sourcing with corridor diversification, limited synchronized logistics shocks linked to gateway congestion. Process-improvement programs, including setup reduction, TPM, and pull control, shortened recovery in factories and distribution centers, while predictive-reactive scheduling with skill-aware cross-training preserved service during promotional peaks. Simulation and digital-twin studies operationalized closed-loop triggers, translating plans into adaptive playbooks for rerouting, wave resequencing, and late-stage finishing. Across studies, median gains clustered around meaningful magnitudes, for example several percentage-point lifts in service and double-digit reductions in time-to-recover, typically at modest cost-to-serve increases, and combinations consistently outperformed single levers. The review contributes a decision-ready synthesis that maps what works, where, and why in U.S. apparel operations, and outlines a reproducible framework for portfolio-based resilience design.