Why Do Garment Factories Miss Plan Cut Dates (PCDs)?
Because the plan cut date is worked out once, when the order is confirmed, and never worked out again. It rests on three things that keep moving: pattern approval, marker approval and fabric. When one of them slips and nobody re-runs the sum, the date is lost weeks before anyone sees it.
What does a missed cut date look like on the floor?
Here is a Monday you may know. The meeting opens on a cut date that passed on Friday.
The merchant says the fit comments came back late. That is true. The CAD room says it cannot make a marker on a pattern that was still being corrected on Wednesday. That is true too. The store says the fabric landed. The cutting master says nothing has reached his table. Also true. Everyone is honest, and the order is nine working days behind.
Nothing was hidden. Every fact was there two weeks earlier, in a WhatsApp group or a diary. “Marker pending hai” was typed on the ninth. “Fabric kab aayega” was asked on the eleventh. Nobody put those two facts next to the ex-factory date and saw that the sum had stopped working.
How do you work out a plan cut date?
A cut date is not a date. It is the answer to a sum. Start from the ex-factory date and count back in working days. Sundays and your own holidays are not working days. This is the count StitchLogic uses today.
- Ironing and finishing: done 1 working day before the ex-factory date.
- Sewing: done 3 working days before it. Pieces still need checking, packing and loading.
- Cutting: starts 15 working days before, for an order up to 3,000 pieces. Add 7 working days for each further 5,000 pieces, or part of it.
- Pattern, marker and fabric: ready about 25 working days before. If the pattern or marker is still not approved, or no fabric has come, inside 20, the date is in trouble, even when the floor looks calm. That is why nobody shouts.
What keeps a cut date from slipping?
Three habits. Factories that hit their dates have them. Factories that talk about their dates do not.
- Work it out per colour, not per PO. One PO can carry four colours with three different ex-factory dates. One date for the whole order leaves the earliest colour quietly late.
- Work it out again when an input moves. If the pattern is approved a week late, the cut date has moved a week. You should see that without anyone remembering to check.
- Keep promises and evidence apart. “It will be done” belongs in the meeting. It does not belong in the plan. The plan uses what the floor actually made in the last three working days.
What does a missed cut date cost?
Not always a missed shipment. Often an expensive one. Sewing takes the loss as overtime, and overtime costs more per piece than the same work did two weeks earlier. If overtime is not enough, the goods go by air. Air freight is charged by the kilo, and the rate depends on where the goods are going. If that is not enough, the buyer asks for a discount, often on the whole order and not only the late part. All of it comes out of a margin that was already thin.
Finding the same slip early costs one phone call to the CAD room.
How does StitchLogic help with plan cut dates?
It does this sum every day, for every colour of every open order. It counts back from the ex-factory date in working days, and it skips Sundays and your holidays. It sets the pieces per day each department now needs against what your floor made in the last three working days. Where the two do not meet, it names the department that is holding the order. If the pattern, marker or fabric is not ready, it says that instead. The Dashboard puts the order that needs you today first.
A cut date is a sum, not a date.
If nobody works it out again when its inputs move, it stops being a plan. It becomes a wish.
Try this tomorrow. Take your three largest orders shipping next month. Work the dates back by hand: ironing, sewing, cutting, and the day pattern, marker and fabric must be settled. If the cut date on your plan is later than the one the sum gives you, you have found next month’s problem this morning, at no cost. Then read what holds a cutting table even after the fabric arrives, or see it done for every colour, every day.
Common questions
What is a plan cut date (PCD)?
It is the date by which cutting must start, so the order can be sewn, finished and shipped by its ex-factory date. You find it by counting back from the ex-factory date in working days.
How many days before shipment should cutting start?
It depends on the product and the number of tables you run. A fair starting point is 15 working days before the ex-factory date for an order up to 3,000 pieces, and 7 more working days for each further 5,000 pieces. Test that against your last few orders. StitchLogic uses these numbers today.
What happens if the PCD is delayed?
Cutting, sewing and finishing get squeezed into the days that were meant for finishing alone. Factories pay with overtime first, then air freight, then a discount to the buyer.
Should a PCD be set per PO or per colour?
Per colour. One PO can carry colours with different ex-factory dates, and a single date for the whole order hides the colour that is already late.
When should pattern, marker and fabric be ready?
About 25 working days before the ex-factory date. If any of the three is still open inside 20 working days, treat the order as in trouble even if nothing looks wrong on the floor.
How do I know early that an order will miss its cut date?
Check pattern, marker and fabric for every colour. Then compare the pieces per day each department needs with what your floor made in the last three working days. Any gap between the two is your warning.