Fabric reconciliation is a process that is used to do a fabric analysis. I mean how the total purchased fabric is used by a factory. What percentage of the fabric is actually used to make garments, what percentage of the purchased fabric is left after shipment as deadstock, and how much fabric is lost as wastage?
Fabric usage analysis is important because it cost 50-85% of total garment cost. You can plan for saving fabric in future orders based on the current fabric usage analysis.
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| Image courtesy: smestory.com |
- Percentage of fabric used in garments out of total fabrics purchased
- Percentage of fabric consumed in sampling and R&D
- Percentage of excess fabric (deadstock) after shipment
- Fabric waste percentage and lost during the process
- Cost of the deadstock fabrics and waste fabric
How to Make Fabric Reconciliation Report?
There may be a various scenario of fabric status like having stock of fabric and using stock fabric for the current order, the same fabric is used for multiple orders. In the article, I will show you fabric reconciliation process against the order and I assume that the factory had purchase fresh fabric for the order. Calculation of fabric usage in various processes and balance fabric returned to the fabric store.Track the following information against each order. Most of the information will be available in the fabric store and cutting department.
- Fabric purchased for the order. (In case you use stock fabric for an order, add those fabric purchased fabric).
- Fabric issued for sample development and R&D
- Fabric issued to cutting department (based on estimated consumption)
- Fabric consumed by cutting department for order (based on actual production average)
- Fabric issued for alteration and part change (From fabric store or use cutting end bits)
- End bits and cutting wastage
- Fabric returned to the fabric store from the cutting department after shipment
- Physical accounting of the fabric stock in the fabric store
You can collect the above information by yourself. Or ask department HODs to provide data required data. To have quick fabric reconciliation you need to set a standard operating procedure for this analysis. A standard procedure may be as follows -
- The fabric store is responsible for keeping a record of fabric issue/receiving against order no.
- Recording of fabric usage data at each stage by concerned departments
- Submitting filled forms to the concerned person with required information after shipping the order
- Fabric reconciliation to be carried out for each order by the responsible department
Example of the reconciliation process:
I have made an example sheet for fabric reconciliation. See the below table. Calculations are shown inside the table. You can prepare your own data collection and fabric analysis sheet based on this example. |
| Fabric reconciliation sheet |
The above example is given for woven fabric. The same thing can be done for knits fabrics also. You need to change the unit of measure from meters to Kgs. Based on the above data a brief analysis is done on the four parameters. The percentage figures are not showing any real factory data, it is used only for an example of a fabric analysis process.
Analysis parameters
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In meters
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Percentage
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Fabric used in cutting for the order
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1153
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86.1%
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Fabric used in sampling/R&D
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10
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0.7%
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Deadstock
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130
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9.7%
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Fabric wasted/lost during the process
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46
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3.4%
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| Fabric analysis chart |
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Read also: How designers build big businesses out of old fabrics
Read also: How designers build big businesses out of old fabrics