Production schedule

The Alliance has created an Excel spreadsheet to help you to keep track of your orders and where they are in the production cycle. This should be used as part of your overall production management.

Despite the huge variety of garment types, when it comes to production management there are only three types of order:

• Orders not in work (where the docket has not been raised).
• Orders in work (where the docket has been raised and issued).
• Completed orders.

The Production schedule (Excel spreadsheet) is split into these three sections:

1. Orders not in Work

This section is for those sales orders for which you have not yet issued a docket.
Once you have your sales orders and details of your fabric and trims, make a production booking with your factory, get them to agree the date and give the booking a sequential reference number. Once the factory agrees the booking, put it on the schedule under the section ‘Not in Work’.

2. Orders in Work

This section is for those sales orders where you have all the fabric, trims, labels, etc. and you have been able to raise a docket. You should have previously given these orders a production booking, so when the docket is ready simply cut and paste the order line from the top section and put it into the bottom ‘In Work’ section – don’t forget to fill in the docket number.

3. Completed Orders

When the order has been delivered by, or collected from the factory, then you must invoice it to your customer (once the quality has been checked, of course).

Take the relevant docket line from the ‘In Work’ section of the spreadsheet and cut and paste it into the ‘Completed Orders’ section. It will need editing because you do not need to show the production booking of this completed order. What you can show is the customer invoice number that you create when you send it to your customer. It is a great way of knowing that all your deliveries get invoiced and that no stock is sitting around your business costing you money.

In this way the production schedule allows to you to have one spreadsheet that encapsulates your whole order situation. At a glance you can see what is still to be put into production and what is still in progress. This will enable you to plan and discuss your production needs when you are in the factories.

Best Practice

• Make a production booking for every style you intend to give a factory.
• Don’t forget to keep the details updated as the situation changes.
• Move the orders from the top section to the bottom ‘In Work’ section as they become dockets.
• Keep the fabric and trim delivery dates under constant monitoring and update the schedule as they get delivered.
• Notify the factory of changes.

Download the Production Schedule (PDF 289Kb)

Download Production schedule (Excel)