Supply Chain Simulation of Manufacturing Shirts Using System Dynamics for Sustainability

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Compared to the previous version, the quality of this resubmitted manusript has been improved significantly. I still have the following concerns:

1) Please give a brief explanation  why the data in the right column in Table 9 are the optimal values.  Are the three indices the best respectively, or their value combination yields the best performance? 

2)  Section 6 and Section 7 should be further enhanced combined with the simulation results for RQ3 and RQ4.    

Author Response

For research article “Supply Chain Simulation of Manufacturing Shirts Using System Dynamics for Sustainability”

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below.

Comment 1: Please give a brief explanation why the data in the right column in Table 9 are the optimal values. Are the three indices the best respectively, or their value combination yields the best performance?

Response 1: We have added the explanation in Section 5.3.

Comment 2: Section 6 and Section 7 should be further enhanced combined with the simulation results for RQ3 and RQ4.   

Response 2: We have combined Section 6 and Section 7 to address this issue.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have substantially improved their manuscript. However,  I find some blank tables on pages 22-24.

Author Response

For research article “Supply Chain Simulation of Manufacturing Shirts Using System Dynamics for Sustainability”

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed response below.

Comment 1: The authors have substantially improved their manuscript. However, I find some blank tables on pages 22-24.

Response 1: Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate it. In the copy we uploaded earlier and the modified copy we are uploading now has no blank tables from our view. Please let us know if you still see any blank tables on your end when you download the document.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The abstract should include the main implications of the study.

The research gap is not clear. What is the gap in the literature you wish to bridge.

Avoid the most you can using lumped refs. There is a complete review on the issue I believe you should cite https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/15/8127  

Please merge some of the subsections of section 2 as they turn the reading truncated.

I believe you should perform a sensitivity analysis, there is, to slightly chnce the main parameters, simulating uncertainity, and observing the results, to determine the most influent.

A final analysis is lacking, comparing your results withe previous literature, if available.

The two last sections must be merged.

The last statement of your article is quite obvious and should be removed from here and from any other part of the study. Investigating if SD can be useful in the apparel industry does not contribute, as SD is a general purpose tool. You do not need to develop an application to verify it. Please amend the purpose of your study, as it is much more than you claim in the last phrase.

best regards

 

Author Response

For research article “Supply Chain Simulation of Manufacturing Shirts Using System Dynamics for Sustainability”

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below.

Comment 1: The abstract should include the main implications of the study.

Response 1: We modified the last three sentences of the abstract to make the conclusion more apparent.

Comment 2: The research gap is not clear. What is the gap in the literature you wish to bridge.

Response 2: We focused on the language in section 2.5 to more clearly state the research gap.

Comment 3: Avoid the most you can using lumped refs. There is a complete review on the issue I believe you should cite https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/15/8127 

Response 3: Thank you for identifying this important reference. We have included it in our literature review.

Comment 4: Please merge some of the subsections of section 2 as they turn the reading truncated.

Response 4: We have merged some subsections of Section 2.

Comment 5: I believe you should perform a sensitivity analysis, there is, to slightly chance the main parameters, simulating uncertainty, and observing the results, to determine the most influent.

Response 5: Doing a sensitivity analysis on the model would add several new research questions which is outside the scope of this specific paper. The suggestion, however, is a good one and may be the subject of a subsequent paper.

Comment 6: A final analysis is lacking, comparing your results with previous literature, if available.

Response 6: We have mentioned in Section 2.5 that we did not identify any previous study specifically addressing SCM of sustainable manufacturing of apparel using SDM.

Comment 7: The two last sections must be merged.

Response 7: Yes, we have merged the last two sections.

Comment 8: The last statement of your article is quite obvious and should be removed from here and from any other part of the study. Investigating if SD can be useful in the apparel industry does not contribute, as SD is a general purpose tool. You do not need to develop an application to verify it. Please amend the purpose of your study, as it is much more than you claim in the last phrase.

Response 8: We have removed the last statement and sharpened our hypothesis in Section 3.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Ok

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The present paper demonstrates how systems dynamics modeling can help a manufacturing unit make better decisions when confronted with dynamic systems. However, the quality of the paper is not up to the standard of good research, and the authors have not convinced readers that the method proposed in this paper is better. The article is unfortunately poorly crafted and structured. A short paragraph at the end of the first section describing the manuscript structure is missing. The literature review section is weak. The cited references are old. I recommend that the authors read extensively the latest research in this area to develop a strong rationale for this research and answer questions such as; why this study is important. Where is the gap in the current literature? What are your core contributions? In addition, the advantages of the current work compared with existing ones are not mentioned. The methodology section is quite superficial. A strong algorithm for the proposed method would be of interest. Most of the results are shown in the appendices.  In summary, I could not find any significant novelty or convincing contribution to this journal. For all the negative reasons mentioned above, this reviewer recommends the rejection of this article.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please see the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf