Pick any piece in your workshop. You should be able to say three things about it without walking the floor: which stage it is at, who has it, and when it is due. That is all production tracking means. The rest of this guide is how to keep those three answers true once you have more work than you can hold in your head.
Customers feel it when you can't. One customer on a wedding forum wrote of her seamstress: "after every appointment she says ___ will be done by next appointment, and it's not." A promise like that usually comes from a guess, and a guess comes from not knowing where the work stands.
Name the stages your work really goes through
Write the stages down as they happen on your floor, in order. Do not copy a textbook list. A bespoke suit, a beaded abaya and a run of uniforms pass through different hands:
| Work | Stages (example) |
|---|---|
| Bespoke suit | Cutting, baste fitting, stitching, forward fitting, finishing, ready |
| Beaded abaya | Cutting, stitching, hand embroidery, beading, finishing, pressing, QC, ready |
| Uniform order | Sizing, cutting, stitching, logo embroidery, packing, ready |
Two tests keep the list honest:
- A stage ends at a handover. The piece moves to another person, a rail or a fitting. If nothing moves, it is probably a step inside a stage.
- Anyone can tell whether a piece is in the stage. "Nearly finished" fails this test. "On the pressing rail" passes it.
Keep the list short enough to fit across a whiteboard. Aim for ten or fewer. If two stages are always done by one person in one sitting, merge them.
One owner per stage, per job
When a job has no name against it, everyone assumes someone else has it. So each stage of each job gets one person. Others can help. One name answers for it.
Workshops ask for this. A reviewer of one tailoring app wrote: "there should be a way to assign tasks to workers".
Agree what done means at each handover, and say it aloud once. For example:
- Cutter: done when all pieces are cut, counted, bundled and on the stitcher's shelf.
- Stitcher: done when threads are trimmed and the piece is on the finishing rail.
- Finisher: done when the piece is pressed and hung for QC.
A person who passes a piece on should also update the record at that moment. If updates wait for the end of the day, the record describes yesterday.
Track the piece for orders, the batch for stock
A customer order with a suit and two shirts is three pieces of work. Each garment needs its own line, its own stage and its own due date, because the shirts may be ready while the jacket waits for a fitting.
Work made for stock moves as a batch, counted by size. Bundles and sewing tickets are the usual control on a production floor, because the ticket stays with the pieces. The trouble starts when a batch splits. Part of it goes out for beading, a few pieces fail QC, and the rest carries on. Give each part its own line, and check the numbers still add up.
Worked example (made-up figures). A batch of 60 dresses leaves stitching. 20 go to an outside beader. 3 fail QC and go back. That leaves 37 moving on to finishing. Check: 37 + 20 + 3 = 60. If your lines do not add back to 60, a piece is lost and you want to know today.
Outside work is where pieces go missing
Once a piece leaves the building, nobody can walk over and look at it. So the record has to do all the work. Before anything goes out, write down:
- the vendor's name
- what was sent, with quantity by size
- any material sent with it, such as beads or thread
- the agreed cost
- the date you expect it back
Keep outside work in its own column or lane, apart from your own stages. Then a late piece is plain to see. Call the vendor the day before a piece is due, while there is still time to change the plan.
Count everything when it returns, in front of the person delivering if you can. Send 20, receive 19, and the shortfall goes in the record that day, against that vendor. A week later nobody will remember.
Treat QC returns as a step, with a reason
A rejected piece should go back to a named stage with a named person. A "rework pile" with no owner is where due dates slip. For each return, record:
- The reason, in plain words: "left cuff puckered", not "bad finish".
- The stage it returns to. A crooked hem goes to stitching, a stain may go elsewhere.
- A photo, if the fault is hard to describe.
- The effect on the due date. A return eats into the time left, so check whether the promise still holds.
Count returns by person, and use the count to find who needs help with what. Once people feel it is a punishment, faults get hidden, and you lose the information.
What to look at every day
Tracking is useless if nobody reads it. Set a short walk through the record at the same time each morning, with whoever runs the floor:
- Due today and tomorrow. Is each piece at a stage that can still finish in time? If not, decide now whether to move people or call the customer.
- Late work. Each late piece gets a new date and a person who will tell the customer.
- The biggest pile. Find the stage with the most pieces waiting in front of it. In the theory of constraints, output is limited by the tightest point in the system, so an hour gained anywhere else may change nothing. In a workshop that point is often handwork or finishing. Move help there.
- Outside work due or overdue. Make the calls.
- QC returns from yesterday. Check each one has an owner.
- Stages with no name. Fill them in.
A pile at one stage for a day means little. The same pile at the same stage all week means you need more hands, a different order of work, or a longer promise to customers.
Start on a wall
None of this needs software. A whiteboard with one column per stage and one card per piece will teach you most of it, and in a small shop it may be enough for a long time. Move the card when the piece moves. Put a name and a due date on every card.
A board begins to strain in predictable ways. It holds no history, so you cannot look back at why a job ran late. Batches that split are awkward to show. Outside work and costs end up in a separate notebook.
When you reach that point, a system should keep the same habits and hold the record for you. Tailoq uses stages you can add, rename and reorder, with one person assigned per stage per job, and board, list and due-today views. Outside work has its own lane with an overdue flag, and QC returns carry a reason and an optional photo. You can see how that is set up in our notes on tracking stages, outside work and QC returns.
See how stages, assignees, outside work and QC returns sit together on one production board.
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