How do you manage samples and tech packs without spreadsheets?

A spreadsheet tracker copies information from everywhere else. The style sits in one tab, the tech pack in a PDF on a shared drive, the fit comments in an email thread and the cost in another workbook. Each copy is right on the day it is made. A week later, at least one of them is out of date, and nobody knows which.

The fix is not a better tracker. It is one record per style that everything else reads from.

A tech pack tells the supplier exactly what to make. It holds:

• construction details
• how to measure
• a size specification graded across the run
• the bill of materials
• packaging and labelling
• sewing instructions
• technical flats

The supplier should only ever work from one signed-off revision. When a measurement or a trim changes, that is a new revision, signed off again, not an edit to last week's PDF.

Most styles go through several sample rounds: a proto to check the idea, fit samples to check the pattern, a size set to check the grading, and a pre-production sample to check the bulk materials and make. Each round has a supplier, a due date, an owner and a status. Each one ends in comments that change the spec.

When a sample is late, the dates after it move too. A tracker shows the late sample. It rarely shows what it does to the delivery date.

Take a rain shell, CR-014, in the Coastline SS27 range. The base size is M, and it runs XS to XL. The supplier is Harbor Tex.

The size specification sets each point of measure at M, with a tolerance, and grades it across the run: body length, chest width, sleeve length, hem width, hood opening. Fit is checked at the smallest, base and largest size, so the first fit round asks for XS, M and XL against the same frozen spec.

M comes back right and is approved. XS and XL are still to come. Revision 03 is signed off and locked, and the supplier works from revision 03. If the hood opening changes after the next fit, that becomes revision 04, signed off again, and the old PDF stops being the one anyone works from.

1. 01One record per style: design, colourways, BOM, specification, tech pack and samples together.
2. 02Revisions frozen at sign-off, with who signed and when.
3. 03The tech pack exported from the record, never edited as a PDF.
4. 04Sample requests logged against the style, with round, supplier, due date and status.
5. 05Fit rounds recorded against the frozen specification, at the smallest, base and largest size.
6. 06Milestones on a critical path, so a late sample shows up while there is still time to act.

A spreadsheet can hold every one of those fields. What it cannot do is stop two people editing the same measurement, lock a revision once it is signed, tie a fit comment to the point of measure it changes, or tell you that a late fit sample now puts the delivery date at risk. That control is what a PLM adds.

Start with the next season's new styles. Leave carryover and in-flight styles where they are until they finish.

1. 01Load the style list, suppliers and size ranges for the new season.
2. 02Set the sample rounds and milestones you already use.
3. 03Build each new style's tech pack on the record from the first revision.
4. 04Give suppliers one place to see the current revision and respond.
5. 05Retire the tracker for that season once every style is on the record.

forge keeps design, materials, colourways, BOM, samples, suppliers, specs and the tech pack on one record, from concept to sign-off. BOM revisions freeze once signed off. The tech pack exports as one PDF for the supplier, from the frozen revision. 3D CAD with materials and markups goes out for review, and virtual fit places the pattern pieces and flags what won't assemble, before the sample ships. Critical path gives one timeline for sign-off, PO, shipping and trading milestones, with dependencies and risk flags, so late samples show up early. When the style is approved, it becomes the range option in core, so development and planning work from the same product.

What is assortment planning?

Breadth, depth and store clusters. Read the guide

What is size curve optimisation?

A size curve is the split of demand across sizes. Read the guide