Product development and production management turn out a little smoother with time, but it is never easy. You get ahold of things smoothly once you get used to the process, but production issues will always happen. From the smallest inconvenience to huge problems that can delay and compromise your entire production, you need to be able to foresee issues and be prepared to deal with them. Especially during production time.
If you think that product development is the most complicated part of the process, sorry to break it to you, but you are wrong! Once your products are done and good to go, you should feel comfortable enough to go into production, that is true, but that does not mean that you should not expect issues during your production. The opposite!
Catching problems during the development stage is easy and, most importantly, when catching problems during development you should be able to fix them before moving into production, which helps to avoid issues on a bigger scale. When it comes to production, issues tend to be more complicated and costly. So, to help you foresee production issues and help you deal with them, let’s look into five very common problems that any brand can face when in production.
1. Timeline delays
The most organized brands start planning their collection two years ahead. From trend research, sketch design, material research, and all the first steps of the process, everything starts in an early stage to meet delivery deadlines without any issues. But that does not mean that issues will not happen.
Ideally, brands want to start planning their collection at least a year ahead, but it is always necessary to include room for error. Production might have issues, shipments can be delayed, and borders can close, all of these are small details that can delay your timeline.
A good idea here is to always add one to two weeks to your final delivery time. Yes, if you are adding two extra weeks to your final delivery, it means that you will be paying for two extra weeks of a fulfillment center, but that makes more sense than not launching on time and not delivering to your wholesale partners on time.
Delivery delays directly affect your sales, so being ahead of your schedule is crucial to make sure you will not lose clients.
2. Material issues
When I said that production issues can be more costly than development issues, this is what I am talking about.
I have seen so many issues with production materials that I could write a whole new blog about it, but to give you an overview of common material issues I have seen in production let me tell you about fabrics and trims.
One time, I had a client who was ready to start production. So I went to the factory to take inventory of everything received by the manufacturer. All materials were delivered, production markers were there, samples were in the sample room, tech packs, spec sheets, and production PO, everything was on hand and ready to go, except the fact that the printer printed the stripes in the wrong direction… so all 150 yards of fabric ordered was a waste.
The fabric supplier redid the order and corrected the stripe direction, but this delayed the production in a week - and only a week because the fabric supplier had material in-house. If they did not have the raw material to reprint and had to redo the entire bulk order, we would have to add another 3 to 4 weeks…
Another time I had a client who was in production, the manufacturer started cutting the fabrics until the factory called me to say that the production markers were wrong and they did not fit on the fabric width. Ok, I measured the fabric width myself, so that was impossible. It turned out that the fabric supplier simply decided to change the fabric width of that particular material and did not inform us. We had to create new production markers, which cost the client more money and delayed the production process within 3 days. The fabric supplier gave the client a discount on the rest of her order, which helped a lot, but in general, the process turned out to be more expensive.
I also had a client who decided to order only five extra buttons for the entire production. Unfortunately, 20% of the buttons had quality issues, so the supplier had to redo the buttons. Now, I am not saying that you should order way more than what you need for production, because nobody wants to waste money or materials, but you need to be prepared and always order extras. If the material is buttons, snaps, zippers, or low-cost supplies, I like to order at least 10% extra for the entire production because shit happens. Factories can lose snaps, they can be badly placed and then the manufacturer has to do it again, they come with quality issues… These things happen! So it is necessary to be prepared for it and add more time to your production because you never know when you will need more supplies.
3. Reprinting production markers
Once your markers are ready and good to go, reprinting production markers should not take more than a day (or hours, even), but it depends on how busy the printer is. One thing that you have to take into consideration is how many markers you will need per style.
Depending on how many units you are ordering, one marker per style and size should be enough, but high quantities and thick fabrics require more markers - because the factory cannot cut all colors/ all quantities of units at once.
This is something that you should know before starting your production because this not only avoids delays but also avoids overwhelming the manufacturer. Again, reprinting production markers should be fast, but remember that the manufacturer is, most likely, not working on your production only, but on multiple productions at the same time. So, if the factory has to stop cutting your production to wait on more markers, they will start cutting and working on somebody else’s production and you do not want to lose your place in the production line.
4. Quality issues
If your development was approved and all your garments have been properly prepared for production, major quality issues should not happen in production but that does not mean they will not happen.
Sometimes quality issues can be very small inconveniences, like the white thread color is not the same throughout the entire production (even though white is white, sometimes you can see the difference, depending on the fabric being used), or the garment was not properly pressed, or the wrong size tag was put on the garment. These are small quality issues that, if you are not paying attention and checking each garment, can go unnoticed. You need your garments to be impeccable when arriving at your customers, so each detail is important.
Small quality issues can be caught during production and they are usually easily fixed, but they also take time. It is necessary to pay attention to each garment and, as I mentioned, add room for error during your production timeline.
5. Shipment delays
This is most common when we are talking about offshore production. Tarifs have increased, borders can close and piracy is still a thing. Unfortunately!
As I mentioned, adding an extra week or two for shipment can be a good decision to avoid delivery delays, but you know your products. You should know what to expect and how much room for error should be added to the delivery time. This is not rocket science, but it does involve paying attention to the news and what is going on worldwide because you can be affected by political decisions and world trading - Trump increased China tariffs, and a bunch of small businesses importing from China were affected, remember?
Also, when producing your garments offshore, you need a quality control established not only for your garments but for the packaging as well. Tech packs should mention packaging details and show pictures of how your garments should be packaged and boxed before shipping. When loading things on a vessel, boxes can be lost or stolen, shipments can get wet because of rain, piracy still happens and package damages simply happen. In general, shipment issues are not so common, but they happen! So adding room for error here and having the option of redoing your garments and shipping them on time to your clients is important to avoid returns or increasing quality concerns within your retailer partners.
I know all of this might be scary, but it is true and you have to be prepared to deal with any issues that come on your way during production. One of the worst issues you can face is not meeting the launch timeline and delaying customers' orders, so adding room for error is one of the most important things to do when planning your collection. As I mentioned, the most organized brands start planning their new collections two years ahead but, realistically, one year is enough time to plan and add space to foresee issues. Development and production do indeed get smoother with time, but they will never be easy. The main goal here is to understand the process and be able to get ahold of any inconveniences that can happen.
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