T&A Plan

            T&A plan is very essential in production merchandising. Actually this is for minimizing the risk of missing any of the activities during the production process and the T&A is prepared by the merchandiser after discussing with other related teams such as procurement, planning, development and with the production departments also. Once the T&A is finalized and approved, the same schedule should be circulated to all the departments concerned when they start the bulk production.

The following are the details that includes to a T&A calendar and this is

                         1st.            NDC (In distribution center) date;-
                                    The date that garment supplier hopes to send their  goods   to the Ex-mill.
First they should decide the date that they hope to send their goods into buyer’s stores. This NDC date is decided after having an agreement. According to that NDC date all the other thing are planned to backward.

                      2nd.            G@C (Goods at consolidator);-
                                                This is the date that factory should submit goods to the port or forwarder. The time duration between the G@C and NDC shows how much time the airfreight or seafreight will take. If it’s airfreight, the time difference between G@C and NDC will be less than the seafreight.  

                       3rd.            Cut; -
            The date that production process will start.  (Cutting garment panels)
The time duration between the Cut and G@C shows what the time that bulk production will take is.
            When they include the cut date into a T@A they have to discuss with the planning team to identify the available space in production lines. Then they book these free production lines and decide the G@C and NDC according to the cut date.

                        4th.            Fab I/H (Fabric in house); -
            The day that all the fabric should be received to the fabric stores to meet the NDC date. The gap between the Cut and Fab I/H is for internal processes of the factory, such as GRN and inspections.

                        5th.            Fab EX-mill; -
                        This is the date that fabric supplier issues their fabrics to the garment factory. The time duration between Ex-mill and Fab I/H shows, how much time that seafreight will take.

                        7th.            OC (Order confirmation) date; -
                                                The date that buyer should confirm his order to meet the NDC date.

            When the merchandiser prepares a T&A he has to communicate with other parties involved in the T&A to make the most efficient calendar.

 There are some hidden details in the T&A calendar but they are very important with making this time schedule. That is;

            They should consider about the internal processes of the fabric supplier also. First of all, the factory making an inquiry from fabric supplier and identify his ability of supplying goods. (This will be further discussed in procurement section. See page 27) this inquiry is based on fabric manufacturing and the factory want to identify what is the date that supplier can supply fabric after the PO sending to him.

             So there is another figure between OC and G@C that they are not included in the T&A, the PO send date to the fabric supplier.

                        6th.            PO send date; -
                The time difference between the PO send date and the Fab Ex-mill date is for internal processes of the fabric, for taking the Lab Dip approvals and for dyeing process.
And the time difference between the PO and OC dates is for the inquiry process of fabric supplier and for the TRS release.