Critical Path - Management Brief - FastReact - Evolve PDF

Management Brief Ref: Fast React_Evolve_Management Brief_Critical Path
ARE YOU IN CONTROL OF YOUR

PRE - PRODUCTION PROCESS?
The Fast React Guide to Critical Path Management Part 1
Why is Critical Path (CP) more important …In some cases the fault may actually lie with your buyer or
now than ever before? supplier, BUT it’s the garment manufacturer who often takes the
majority of the pain, so pro-active management of your buyer’s
Two of the most recent trends in the relationship between and supplier’s timelines is essential, wherever possible.
apparel manufacturer and their buyers have been:
NB: Even if delivery deadlines ARE ultimately being achieved,
• Suppliers taking on more product design & this is often at a very real and high cost to
development, including sourcing, testing and the business.
approval of materials.
Constant ‘firefighting’ and stress inevitably reduce efficiency
• Reduction in lead times, where the standard for new and quality levels, increase working hours and add unnecessary
product is now around 90 days, with some buyers ‘excess’ costs.
are aiming for 60 days, 50 or even 40 days, from PO
receipt to ex-factory. With the identified trends towards shorter lead times and
garment vendors assuming more responsibility for product
To understand the best way to cope with both increased development, things are definitely not going to get any easier!
complexity and shorter lead times it is important to
understand what typically happens now. With the additional constant pressure on production costs and
profit margins, plus the need to achieve on time delivery to
All too often, most of the pressure occurs in the final 30 retain customers and avoid penalties, apparel manufacturers
days during the production phase. really have to get tight control over the pre-production process.
That is to say, in most businesses, it is during the What exactly does CP involve?
production phase that most of the fire-fighting takes
place to maintain delivery deadlines and compensate for Pre-Production Milestones, Critical Path Management (CPM),
any delays and slide in the approval process and material Time & Action (T&A) - there are many names, but they all
supply that should have happened in the preceding 30 to describe the same process, i.e. that of ensuring that all the
60 days. required activities in the process from order enquiry through
costing, BOM creation, fit and style approval, material trim and
If your business suffers from any of the following problems, garment testing happen on time so that production can start
then you could benefit from a closer look at your Critical Path on time.
(CP) process:
• Delays getting information from buyers “The critical path tools enable users to quickly identify
potential problems, empowering them to take
• Too many late samples / approvals
corrective action before problems arise. This has greatly
• Poor coordination between departments, suppliers increased the efficiency of communication. As a result,
and buyers Fast React has allowed us to reduce lead times, improve
our efficiency and improve our on-time
• Poor ‘on time delivery’ of materials delivery performance.”
• Delays to start cut dates vs. planned start dates,

Alex Lui, Project Manager - Lever Style (China)
leading to lost production capacity
• Excessive use of overtime and firefighting to make

sure you deliver on time
Fast React Systems Ltd – Europe Fast React Systems Ltd – Asia
Tel: +44 (0)1332 668942 Tel: +66 (0)2 664 3326
Email: info@fastreact.com Web: www.fastreact.com Email: info.asia@fastreact.com Web: www.fastreact.com
1

The 5 Key Steps of Critical Path STEP 2. Set Targets and Priorities for each activity
Management and Common Fashion
This is probably the most difficult yet most important part of the
Industry Problems
whole process.
STEP 1. Define the activities, durations &
Each activity on every style/order should have a clear target
persons responsible.
date and priority so each department is working through the
many styles/orders/activities in priority sequence i.e. the sample
This is the easy part!
room, merchandisers, purchasing, sales team are all working in
• Identify what tasks need to be completed,
a coordinated manner.
in the correct sequence, from start i.e. product
development / receive PO to completion i.e. shipping
Most businesses set these targets based on the delivery date
& payment for the order.
with a fixed period assumed for the production normally 1
month.
• Consider where parallel activities can be performed
to save time.
Example 1: Target setting based on fixed lead times
before the delivery date
• Consider if one activity is dependent on another i.e.
part of a chain.
However, this approach is MUCH too simple and doesn’t work
effectively. Here’s why that is:
• Agree on the shortest reasonable time (days
required) in which you can complete the process
• Most businesses have many orders with the same
(including a reasonable safety margin or buffer).
delivery date i.e. at the middle and end of each month.
This is because the buyers often work in these time
• The person or department responsible to follow up.
‘buckets‘ and also want to consolidate shipments to
save transport cost.
In order to ensure consistency of process, a template based
approach to CP is required to deal with the necessary
• Using the above method, if 30 orders each have
variations, but still retain a company-wide standard.
the same delivery date, then those 30 orders will all
have the same target dates for each activity (assuming
This approach is difficult to achieve if you use email and
similar product types)… but of course it is impossible
spreadsheets because these methods don’t promote a
to complete 30 samples or order / receive 30 lots of
standard and consistent approach as each user simply
fabric or trims on the same day.
develops their own working methods.
• This means that there is no clear priority for these 30
The complexity in the fashion industry arises from having
orders, so each department will set their own priority
many separate projects (each style is a project) ongoing
and that priority will never be the same across all
at the same time. Each buyer and product type requires
departments and suppliers!
different activities and lead times, so it is essential to
set very clear priorities for each variant (the template
based approach).
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2

• The result is when we want to start production the • IMPORTANT: The delivery date is not the key driver
activities will not be coordinated and some activities for most activities! Consider the relationship between
are likely to be complete on each order, but few the pre-production activity, the production process
orders may be complete and ready for production. and the delivery date. For example, fabric is not
Certainly the most important ones i.e. those needed related to final delivery date, it is related to the start
first to meet the earliest planned start dates are not cut date.
obvious to anyone.
• Production start dates are typically the key driver.
• In practice, we also don’t need 30 days for every The start date for each order will depend on may
production order. The time required will vary factors such as:
according to the style detail, order quantity, available
capacity etc. - Style difficulty i.e. SAM or SMV
- Order quantity
So how do we set realistic targets dates - Capacity available, including how many sewing
and priorities? lines will be used
- Seasonal demand between high and low
Example 2: Target setting to achieve clear priorities season i.e. are we pulling forward some orders
In the above example we can see 4 different orders all with to smooth capacity loading
same delivery date, but in reality they will all have different - Production processes required and their
critical path targets. constraints i.e. are embroidery or washing
required? Will they be in house or subcontracted?
In order to get clear priorities for each order, we need to
understand and take into account various key factors:
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3

• This technique of setting priorities based on actual STEP 3. Update Task Status Daily
demand (required start dates) is often referred to as
PULL system or JIT (Just in Time) in Lean terminology Once clear targets have been established these need to be
communicated to the different people responsible, this will
• Be careful though as often the process is complicated also include people outside the business such as suppliers,
by buyer rules. For example a common situation is buyers and subcontractors.
that buyers request that some activities e.g. fabric
order is issued ASAP (as soon as possible) after the It is essential that each activity owner has the latest
receipt of the garment PO. priorities and can also feedback to the planning and control
team the latest status.
This means that some activities are “pushed” in terms
of target date from the point of order receipt, but we So, on a daily basis, activity owners must:
still need a ‘pull’ system for activities such as ‘receipt
of fabric’ to align with start cut dates. • Update each activity, when completed
• Where an activity cannot be completed on time,
The complexity and large number of variables involved advise an expected completion date i.e. how
in calculating these priorities means that the traditional many more days are required.
tools used by manufacturers i.e. email and many separate
spreadsheets cannot work without a huge manual workload Of course the key challenges are:
on the planning and pre production team …
• Lots of data - even a medium size factory making
As a result we see that in most business they use a too saying 30 styles per month, with 3 months of firm
simplistic approach to target setting (delivery date, minus orders, plus 3 months of new styles in development
30 days for production minus required lead time for each has 180 styles to manage at any one time.
activity). They then have to constantly firefight and manage
exceptions to try to achieve on time production start Assuming only 20 key critical path activities to
and delivery. manage on each style that adds up to a huge 3,600
separate activities to manage.
“One area that had previously been a headache for If we also then consider different colours, plus
us was the coordination between marketing, planning separate material items, the number of activities to
follow up could easily be tens of thousands.
and production - numerous meetings were needed to
accurately quote delivery dates for customer inquiries. • Frequent changes - A change to one activity on
With Fast React we’ve already been able to bring all these a style can create a knock on effect on many others
functions together in one centralised system and respond i.e. if the sample approval on style A fails and need
to customers in half the time it used to take us previously.” to be resubmitted that can lead to many other
changes i.e. style A can’t proceed to the next step of
pre-production and start cut may be delayed.
Mr. Rohan Goonetilleke, Managing Director - Textured
Jersey (Sri Lanka) As a result, style C may need to be pulled forward
and the critical path for that style needs to be
completed sooner to get it ready for production in
place of Style A.
So now we can begin to see clearly why many

companies struggle to gain control of the CP update
process.
To achieve that control requires good tools, a

disciplined approach and a repeating ‘cycle’ of
communication:
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4

Do you have good visibility, coordination STEP 4. Manage The Exceptions, Fast Track &
and discipline? Re-plan
Once the status of each activity is known, the planner can

report and manage the exceptions.
Revise the
Set clear
plan and If the above steps are carried out effectively, then it is
repeat the targets and
priorities reasonable to assume that the 80/20 rule will apply i.e. 80% of
cycle
activities will be ok, but 20% will still
raise issues.
The planner is now a key problems solver, if there are delays

on the CP, there may be several solutions,
for example:
Share the Update
status and actual or • Fast Track - It may be necessary to cut lead times
highlight expected on other activities in order to complete the critical
problems completion path in time. CP lead times should always include a
small amount of buffer (vs. the minimum achievable
lead time) to allow for this.

• Revise Plan - If the CP is linked and driven from
…. or are your departments disconnected? the latest plan, it can be possible to reschedule the
production start date by swapping order/style
Most business try to handle the above process through a sequence in the plan.
combination of lots of emails, spreadsheets and sometimes an
ERP system. Quick and easy coordination between departments
when changes are genuinely required is key to
Those separate methods don’t share data or updates result avoiding extra cost.
in huge amounts of manual work and a visibility/coordination
nightmare. In so many businesses, CP status is not visible to the
planner, so they are often planning ‘BLIND’ with no real
In reality, due to the high volumes of data and regular changes visibility or advance warning of problems in
on status mistakes are made, priorities are not clear and pre-production.
problems are not seen soon enough.
The result is often the ‘worst case’ scenario, where
failures in the CP process mean that the start production
“Prior to installing Fast React, the systems in place date will be pushed back.
were cumbersome and disjointed giving us poor visibility
and reporting. This in turn often means having to sacrifice profits and
efficiency by arranging overtime, changing the plan so the
style runs on several production lines or subcontracting to
Fast React has greatly improved visibility, centralised the
catch the delivery date.
information flow across departments within the business
and improved response times. Once we were up and
running with FastReact the system immediately started
to deliver tangible benefits to the business.”
Matt Arrowsmith, Chief Operating Officer

Asia - AllSaints (UK)
Tel: +44 (0)1332 668942 Tel: +66 (0)2 664 3326
5

STEP 5. Measure your actual performance KPI & Conclusions

Continuous Improvement
Critical Path Management will be an increasingly important part
As with any key part of the business process, actual critical path of every fashion business’s tool kit.
performance should be recorded and reviewed.
Without good tools and a systematic and determined approach
This enables you to check that your timelines are realistic to CP it will be more and more difficult to complete the
and identify where and how you could reduce them. Key increasingly complex product development process in the
Performance Indicators (KPI) should include: shorter and shorter timescales required.
• Total order lead time from various key points for The consequences of not managing the process, i.e. increased
example from ‘receive order’ to ‘ready to ship’ or costs of overtime, subcontracting, firefighting in production
‘receive order’ to ‘ready to cut’. (efficiency and quality losses) or, in the worst case, late delivery
are simply not sustainable with today’s tight profit margins.
Do you really know your actual achieved maximum,
minimum and average lead times for different Fortunately, there is already a proven solution both to managing
products? the complex challenges of critical path AND keeping this aligned
with the latest planned production start dates. The critical path
• Achievement against target i.e. what was planning tools from Fast React Systems are fully integrated into
the average number of days +/- that activities were its ‘industry standard’ capacity planning system providing a
completed compared to the target date. simple answer to these complex industry challenges.

From this analysis, you can understand which
activities can already be achieved in a shorter time “Fast React has given us full integration of our planning
and which still need process improvement to achieve and pre-production activities...
existing targets.
…a 6.5% improvement on factory efficiencies due to
• Right First Time Analysis on approvals. Knowing improved planning and the ability to react quickly and
what % of all approval fail (by activity, buyer and
earlier to supply issues, thus avoiding unnecessary line
product type).
idling.
• When failures and lateness do occur it is important
that reasons can be recorded. This will greatly The proactive warnings that Fast React provides in
improve the ability to analyse each season and advance of a problem has been key to managing this
identify what areas should be focused on to ensure
process more effectively.”
better performance next time.
Typically fashion businesses have little time to review their Carl Morley, Supply Chain Director - Crystal Martin
achieved performance. As soon as one season is over they (Sri Lanka)
must rush into the next.
More importantly, the time consuming process of collecting

and analyzing the history of a season is almost impossible Next Month we will look at how Fast React
when information is scattered over 1000’s of emails, provides practical tools to achieve the 5 steps of Critical
spreadsheets or even or hand written notes. So we often Path Management and solution to the common problems
keep repeating the same mistakes season after season!! mentioned in the article….
Tel: +44 (0)1332 668942 Tel: +66 (0)2 664 3326

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What are the common problems faced in pre-production?

What are the common problems faced in pre-production?

What are the 5 steps of Critical Path Management?

What are the 5 steps of Critical Path Management?

Management Brief Ref: Fast React_Evolve_Management Brief_Critical Path

ARE YOU IN CONTROL OF YOUR

• Delays to start cut dates vs. planned start dates,

• Excessive use of overtime and firefighting to make

ARE YOU IN CONTROL OF YOUR

ARE YOU IN CONTROL OF YOUR

ARE YOU IN CONTROL OF YOUR

So now we can begin to see clearly why many

To achieve that control requires good tools, a

ARE YOU IN CONTROL OF YOUR

Once the status of each activity is known, the planner can

The planner is now a key problems solver, if there are delays

Matt Arrowsmith, Chief Operating Officer

ARE YOU IN CONTROL OF YOUR

STEP 5. Measure your actual performance KPI & Conclusions

More importantly, the time consuming process of collecting

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