'Shipping next week' for the third week running
Your autumn coats were due to ship from the factory on the 1st. On the 1st, you get an email saying fabric was late and they will ship on the 15th. On the 15th, it is the 22nd. You have a launch email booked, a lookbook out with stockists and pre-orders promising October delivery. If you had known in August that the fabric was late, you could have moved the launch or found another mill. In September, all you can do is apologise.
The factory probably knew about the fabric weeks ago. It was not hiding it. It simply was not asked, and there was nowhere to put the information except another email.
Why you hear about delays late
- The critical path is a spreadsheet on your side, updated from emails when someone has time.
- Factories report on the final ship date, not on the steps before it.
- Fabric and trims delays, which cause most slips, are upstream of the factory's own sewing.
- Several orders across several factories are tracked by one busy person.
- The link between a production delay and launch dates, pre-orders and wholesale deliveries is worked out in someone's head.
What late news costs
| Late news about | What it costs you |
|---|---|
| Fabric delivery | Losing the chance to switch mill or style |
| Sewing progress | Launch emails and ads booked for stock that is not there |
| Inspection failure | No time left to fix faults before shipping |
| Ship date | Pre-order customers and stockists told late |
How we build a live critical path
- Each purchase order gets a set of milestones based on your usual critical path: lab dips approved, fabric ordered, fabric received, trims received, cutting started, sewing finished, inspection, ex-factory, arrival.
- Each milestone has a planned date worked back from the delivery you need.
- The factory or agent updates milestones through a simple web form or by replying to a weekly email with the dates, which we read and log. No new software for them to learn.
- When a milestone slips, or a planned date passes with no update, the order is flagged and the delay is shown against the final delivery date.
- Each order links to what depends on it: the launch date, pre-orders on the website and wholesale orders due to stockists. A slip shows who will be affected.
- A weekly summary lists every order that is on track, at risk or late, so the production meeting starts from facts.
The planned milestones use the dates you and the factory agree, not our assumptions.
A normal Monday afterwards
The weekly summary shows the coats: fabric received is five days behind plan. The rest of the order is still on track, but the tracker shows that if fabric slips another week, the ex-factory date moves past your launch. You speak to the factory on Monday, not in September. Maybe the launch moves, maybe one colour is dropped, maybe nothing needs to change. Either way, you decided it with time to spare.
Factories and agents who do not want another system
Most factories deal with many brands and will not log into a new portal for each one. That is why updates can come by email reply, a short form or a shared sheet, whatever the factory will actually use. The work of turning replies into dates on the tracker happens on our side of the system, and anything unclear goes to your production person to confirm.
Signs you need a live critical path
- You find out about factory delays around the ship date.
- The critical path is a spreadsheet updated from emails.
- Fabric and trims delays surprise you.
- Launch dates and pre-orders are set before production is confirmed.
- One person carries the status of every order in their head.