The time and action calendar for garment production
A time and action calendar (T&A, or TNA) is a list of dated milestones for one purchase order, worked back from the date the goods must arrive. Its job is to show a late order weeks before the ship date, while there is still time to do something.
By Philip Radvan, founder. Updated . 7 minute read.
Start from the date that cannot move
Begin with the date the goods must be in your warehouse, or the buyer's. Subtract transit time to get the ex-factory date. Subtract finishing, sewing and cutting to get the date bulk fabric must be in the factory. Keep going back to the first approval.
If the first milestone is already in the past, the order is late on the day it is placed. Better to see that now than at ex-factory.
The milestones most orders need
Pick the ones that apply to your product; leave out the rest rather than marking them done.
- Approvals: lab dips, strike-offs, trims, fit sample, size set, pre-production sample.
- Materials: fabric and trims ordered, bulk fabric in the factory, bulk fabric approved.
- Production: cutting starts, sewing starts, sewing finishes, finishing and packing.
- Shipping: ex-factory, vessel departure, arrival, in the warehouse.
- Documents: the care label, packing list and other papers each stage needs, with their own due dates.
Every milestone gets one owner
A milestone without an owner is a date nobody watches. Name the person, on your side or the factory's, who confirms each one. Planned date, actual date, and the person who entered the actual date: that is all a milestone needs.
Watch the gap, not the finish line
The useful number is how late the latest milestone is against plan. A fit approval that slips a week usually moves everything after it. Flag it the day it slips, to the people who sold the order, so the conversation with the buyer starts early.
Review open orders weekly by their worst milestone, not by their ship date.
- Record the actual date the day it happens, not at the end of the week.
- Send the delay to the people who sold the order and the warehouse that will receive it.
- Ask the factory for a recovery date, and write it down as a new plan date beside the original.
Templates, then exceptions
Build one template per product type (a knit top and a tailored jacket have different paths) with standard lead times between milestones. A new order starts from its template; only the exceptions get edited. The template is also where you learn: when a step is always late, the lead time in the template is wrong.
Keep the template honest about approvals. Most late orders were late before cutting started: a fit comment that took two rounds, a lab dip that was rejected, trims that arrived after the fabric. Give approvals real lead times and they stop surprising you.
Where Garmiq fits
Garmiq puts the T&A calendar on the purchase order it belongs to.
- Purchase orders with size grids, a stage-by-stage pipeline, and documents due by stage.
- Time-and-action milestones per purchase order, shown as a Gantt, with delay notifications.
- Factory records with capacity, compliance audits and certifications, and a Capacity and Compliance dashboard.
- Shipments linked to purchase orders, with live container tracking and ETA delay reasons.
More guides: How to track garment samples, Points of measure, a practical guide, Line sheets for department store buyers, Off-price vendor requirements, Routing guide compliance and chargebacks, The sample request process with wholesale buyers.