A characteristic of today’s markets for multi-attribute items is fierce global competition. Every company needs to globalize in order to grow market share and extend its supply chain. Companies outsource production to leverage cost and response-time efficiencies.

They may also outsource logistics functions, using the services of partners to manage storage or packaging.

The goal of these models is to improve responsiveness to demand while providing tighter control of the whole business cycle. Business is embracing a truly collaborative approach among partners in the supply chain.

Customer expectations are increasingly volatile and at the same time increasingly specific. To meet these conflicting demands and yet maintain position in the market, manufacturers must both multiply the number of end items and customize the end items.

This creates the requirement for style items, which are items assembled from characteristics such as style, fabric, colour, length, and other variables. The number of child or end style items available is based on the number of attributes and levels for a parent-level style item.

The JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Apparel Management system from Oracle supports any product produced with differentiated multiple attributes such as sizes, lengths, colours, widths, and materials.