Styles, colours, sizes and materials calculated in one pass, with material shortages down about 60%

The company is a manufacturer providing production services to several apparel brands, organising production around each customer's styles, colours, sizes and delivery requirements.

A single style can come in more than a dozen size and colour combinations, and different versions involve changes to fabric, trim and packaging requirements.

Although the company could record sales and purchase orders, style data, material requirements and production progress were maintained mainly in Excel.

Whenever a customer changed its colour ratios or size quantities, planners had to recalculate material requirements and notify several departments.

The challenge

Product specification data was scattered

Sales used customer style numbers, the technical team used internal style numbers, and purchasing managed materials by fabric or trim codes.

Without a single relationship between them, specification mismatches and purchasing errors were common.

Frequent order changes disrupted material planning

Different sizes and colours affect the consumption of certain materials.

When customer orders changed, the system could not promptly reflect the resulting increase or decrease in material requirements.

Materials shared across orders made stock hard to optimise

Some fabrics and trims could be shared across several orders, but planners found it hard to tell which materials were already reserved and which could be reallocated.

SHEPHARD's digital solution

Step 1: Establish product variant management

Each style became a product master, with standardised product variants defined by attributes such as colour and size.

The mapping between customer style numbers, internal codes and supplier material codes was unified.

Step 2: Standardise BOMs and material versions

Bills of materials and actual consumption rules are maintained per product specification.

Product versions confirmed by the customer go through approval and effective-date control, so outdated technical documents are less likely to stay in circulation.

Step 3: Introduce order-driven material requirements planning

Fabric, trim and packaging requirements are exploded from the specific size and colour combinations in each customer order.

Material shortfalls are calculated from current stock, reserved quantities, open purchase orders and purchasing lead times.

Step 4: Connect purchasing, production and subcontracting

Orders requiring outsourced printing, embroidery or other processing have a clear subcontracting record.

Materials sent to subcontractors, processing progress, goods received back and quality inspections are all linked to the original production order.

Step 5: Build order fulfilment analytics

Production progress, material shortfalls and planning variances are analysed by customer, style, order batch and delivery date.

Critical materials and subcontracting milestones that could affect delivery dates are monitored closely.

Implementation approach

We first unified product attributes and codes, then cleaned up the BOMs for typical styles.

One customer's order series was chosen to pilot material requirements planning and production tracking.

Once stable, the solution was gradually extended to complex product variants, subcontracting processes and stock optimisation strategies.

Business value

The company has cut the repeated back-and-forth and manual calculations caused by product version changes.

Purchasing, technical, production and sales teams now work from the same product and order data.

Results (approximate): Material shortages approx. −60%; BOM change handling 2 days→2 hours; material planning accuracy approx. 95%.

Metrics tracked on an ongoing basis: Material planning accuracy, number of material shortages, value of slow-moving stock, on-time order delivery rate, BOM change handling time.

What this case teaches us

The first problem complex manufacturers need to solve is the structure of their product data.

Only when products, specifications and material relationships are captured accurately can ERP and automation systems deliver their full value.

*To protect client confidentiality, company details in this case study have been anonymised; screenshots are illustrative and results are rounded approximations.*