Your first day of classes is finally over. You sink, exhausted, into a chair in your apartment, wondering how in the world summer can seem so far away now. You think about all the deadlines that lie in front of you—projects, papers, exams—and how you need to work on your resume for the upcoming Job Fair. If only you could have a few more weeks of summer break.

Suddenly your roommate Alex bursts into your apartment.  She tosses her backpack on the couch and says, “I finally have my life figured out!”

What is she talking about? She doesn’t even wait for you to ask. “I’m starting my own business,” she tells you. “We’re starting a business!” She goes on to explain that she was just hanging out with some other Fisher students in the courtyard outside of Mason Hall, and while they were eating lunch, an idea emerged that just might be an opportunity. She went on to tell you about how your mutual friend – Jason - was complaining about how society wasn’t doing enough to become more sustainable. Jason’s girlfriend Haneffa mentioned that her fashion merchandising class had just been discussing fast fashion and she could believe that: 

- The average American throws away around 81 pounds of clothing yearly.

- More than $500 billion of value is lost every year due to clothing underutilization and lack of recycling.

- One in three young women, the biggest segment of consumers, consider garments worn once or twice to be old.

- Three out of five fast fashion items end up in a landfill.

- Fashion accounts for 20 to 35 percent of microplastic flows into the ocean.

- The fashion industry is responsible for 8% of carbon emissions.

- Less than 11% of brands are implementing recycling strategies for their items.

“Why not build a company that uses an App to facilitate the collection and redistribution/reclamation of all these different types of unwanted clothing?” Your roommate goes on to tell you, “We can position ourselves as an alternative to someone going to Goodwill or a thrift store! Think of all the thrown away clothing here in Columbus. We’ll start by collecting a wide range of unwanted clothing from students on campus and make sure they are in good condition before either redistributing it out to the community as used clothing through an online storefront or pop-up shops around the community. That way we can prove the concept and expand from there.  

Everyone at lunch  have signed on to give it a try: Ethan will be the finance guy.  He is sure that local companies would donate some seed money to get things started. His girlfriend Juliette will handle App design. Jason will be the clothing acquisition guru because he did something similar for his senior project in high school.  Haneffa will handle clothing inspection and repair.  Stacey—the best student in the marketing core class—will handle promotion. Augie, your other roommate who has been listening intently to the conversation, tells Alex that it would be possible to use some of his father’s warehouse space in Grandview Heights to serve as the collection, processing and redistribution point here in Columbus.  “This would be so cool to work on!” he shouts.  “We can call our company Buckeye Vintage!”  

“All we need now is you,” Alex says. “We need you to do logistics!”

Logistics?? You sit there wondering why in the world she would ever expect you to handle the logistics? Oh . . . you vaguely remember discussing your class schedule as you moved back in a few nights ago. You had mentioned to her the Logistics Management class you were taking with Professor Knemeyer this session. She had asked you about the class as she wasn’t going to take it until her senior year.

“So?” she asks. “Go ahead. Tell me: What are the logistics decisions we need to consider? How should we handle the logistics planning for the business?  What logistics challenges might we face? We all think this could be huge! Who knows? Maybe we can even take the concept to other cities!”

You had always wanted to start a business . . . why not this one? All your friends will be a part of it, you like the idea, this could be a resume builder, and a great way to be more focused on sustainability.

Then you realize you better answer her questions before she changes her mind. . .

What initial recommendations would you provide to your friend? You should, based on initial impressions, (a) answer the questions your friend posed about logistics/supply chain issues that need to be considered and (b) propose how to best design a logistics system to support this business.