How are many styles kept moving at once?
How retail programmes are managed
Anmol JournalGuide
Guide 8 of 10
- Topic
- Programmes
- Reading time
- 2 minutes
- Sections
- 05
- Figures
- 02
01A programme, not an order
Retailers buy in programmes: a group of styles planned together for a season or a delivery drop, each in several colours and sizes, often with staggered deliveries. The work is less about one garment than about keeping many moving in step.
That is why the first questions are about the whole: how many styles, which fabrics they share, and which delivery each one belongs to.
02One named owner
With us, each programme has one named merchandiser who owns the communication: one place for specifications, revisions and approvals, and one person who knows the whole programme.
Behind that person, design, production, partner units and QA each own their stage. The merchandiser's work is the handoffs between them.
Fig. 01Programme stages, owners and approval points
- 01
Order
- 02
Development
- 03
Approval
- 04
Fabric
- 05
Production
- 06
Quality
- 07
Packing
- 08
Dispatch
03Gates, not guesses
A well-run programme moves through gates: the quotation, the approved counter sample, approved bulk fabric, the inspection result. A stage does not start until the gate before it has been passed and recorded.
Gates make a programme visible. At any moment it is clear which gate each style has passed and what it is waiting for.
04Capacity against the calendar
Capacity is planned against the delivery window, style by style. A large programme can run on several lines in parallel, on our Bhiwandi floor and at partner units, rather than queueing on one.
A plan is only as good as the dates feeding it, so fabric, trims and approvals are tracked against the same calendar as the lines.
A stage does not start until the gate before it has been passed and recorded.
05The retailer's rules
Every retailer has its own labelling, ticketing, packing and documentation rules, often gathered in a vendor manual. Treating them as part of the specification from the quotation onwards avoids the most avoidable delay in retail: goods that are ready but cannot be packed.
A vendor manual shared with the enquiry can be costed into the quotation, instead of being discovered at packing.
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