The T&A spreadsheet says everything is green
Every order has a time and action plan: lab dip approval, fabric booking, fit approval, PP approval, fabric in-house, trims in-house, cutting, sewing, finishing, final inspection, ex-factory. It lives in a spreadsheet with a tab per brand. It was accurate the week it was made.
Since then the lab dip was rejected twice, the fabric mill pushed delivery, and the PP sample comments arrived late. The spreadsheet still shows green, because the merchandiser has been too busy chasing those things to update it.
A plan that depends on someone typing
The T&A calendar is only as current as the last time someone updated it, and the busiest weeks are when it is least likely to be updated. The events that should move it forward are already recorded elsewhere, in emails and goods-in sheets, but nothing connects them.
- Milestone dates are typed in by hand after the fact, if at all.
- A slip in one milestone does not move the ones that depend on it.
- Each brand has its own template and milestone names.
- The spreadsheet shows planned dates, not how late things actually are.
- Nobody looks at every order at once, only the ones currently on fire.
What a stale plan costs
Orders drift late one milestone at a time, and by the time it is obvious, the only recovery options are expensive: overtime, subcontracting, air freight or a delay penalty from the brand. Brands ask for T&A updates, and a merchandiser spends a morning rebuilding one from memory. The planner loads lines with orders whose fabric is not actually coming.
The spreadsheet also hides patterns. If one mill is late on most orders, or one brand always takes longer than planned to approve PP samples, a stale T&A never shows it. Those are exactly the things you want to know when you set the next plan and agree the next ex-factory date.
A critical path tracker driven by events
- Each brand's milestone template is set up with the standard gaps between milestones, working back from the ex-factory date.
- A new order generates its plan automatically from the PO date and ex-factory date.
- Milestones are completed by the events that prove them: an approval email filed against the style, a fabric goods-in record, a cut quantity, a passed final inspection. Where there is no digital record, a person ticks it off.
- When a milestone slips, the dependent milestones move with it, and the effect on the ex-factory date is shown.
- A daily view lists orders where the projected ex-factory date has moved past the promised one, or where a milestone is overdue.
- T&A reports for each brand are produced in their format from the same data, for the merchandiser to check and send.
| Milestone | How it is updated now | How it is updated in the tracker |
|---|---|---|
| Lab dip approved | Merchandiser remembers to type it | Approval email filed against the style |
| Fabric in-house | Stores tells someone | Goods-in record |
| PP approved | Typed in | Approval recorded on the sample round |
| Cutting started | Rarely updated | First cut quantity recorded |
A plan that tells you something
The production director sees the handful of orders at risk each morning instead of discovering them one by one. A merchandiser answering a brand's T&A request sends a current report rather than rebuilding one. When the mill pushes a fabric date, the effect on cutting and shipping is visible straight away, and the conversation with the brand happens early.
Your T&A, honestly?
- The T&A spreadsheet is only updated when a brand asks for it.
- Orders turn out to be late at the sewing stage, not earlier.
- Slipped milestones do not move the dates after them.
- Each brand's T&A template lives in its own file.
- You cannot see all orders at risk in one place.