This page is for anyone who has to give a buyer a real answer, not a guess, about when a new order can ship. Lessons 8.2.1 to 8.2.4 each gave one piece of the method: theoretical capacity, actual capacity, a shared booking sheet, and the cost of an overbooking. This lesson puts all four pieces together, for one new order. It mainly teaches a decision: whether a date can be confirmed as requested, confirmed with a costed adjustment, or must be a different date.
This matters most for a domestic Make to Stock planner like Cedar & Co.'s own team, updating expected stock delivery against its forecast rather than one buyer's fixed sailing date, though the same method applies equally to an export order.
Without running the full chain, a person can check one line in one week, see it fits, and confirm a date a different week on the same line would have shown as impossible. This lesson gives the method: identify every line and week a new order needs, calculate capacity, book alongside everything committed, check for overbooking, then confirm.
You need: the four methods from lessons 8.2.1 to 8.2.4 — theoretical daily capacity, actual daily capacity, the multi-order booking sheet, and shortfall costing. You do not need to have run all four together on one order before.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: any one piece of the method in isolation — those are lessons 8.2.1 through 8.2.4 — and line balancing within a single line, which is the subject of Course 3.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Booking sheet | A shared record that lists which lines are committed to which orders, in which weeks, and how much of each line's capacity each commitment uses, so every booking can be checked against the same total. |
| Overbooking | Booking more quantity onto a line or period than its actual daily capacity can produce, so the booked total exceeds what the line can deliver on time without added cost. |
| Capacity utilisation | The share of a factory's available capacity actually being used by confirmed orders, expressed as a percentage of its maximum output. |
| Theoretical daily capacity | The number of pieces a line could produce in a day if every available minute converted directly into output at the operation's SMV, before any efficiency loss is applied. |
| Make to Stock (MTS) | Producing against the seller's own sales forecast, rather than a single confirmed buyer order. |
Confirming a delivery date for a new order is the last step of a chain, not a separate guess. It requires calculating the relevant lines' actual daily capacity, booking the new order alongside everything already committed to those lines in the weeks it needs, checking whether any line becomes overbooked, and only then confirming a date that either fits cleanly or is adjusted, costed and communicated with the overtime, split or delay it needs.
A person who has only ever seen a new order fit cleanly should not assume every order reaches the same result. The chain does not change; what it finds at the end does.
| What can differ | The shapes you meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| A new order that fits cleanly | When the full chain shows utilisation staying under 100% on every line and week the order needs, the factory can confirm the requested date without any adjustment. | The best outcome, but only provable by actually running the chain, not by assuming it. |
| A new order needing a costed adjustment | When the chain shows a shortfall on one line in one week, the factory can still confirm the date if it also confirms the adjustment and its cost, rather than confirming the date alone. | A date confirmed without its adjustment is a promise the factory cannot actually keep. |
| A new order needing a different date | When no adjustment closes the shortfall in time, the factory must offer a later delivery window instead, using the same figures to show by how much the date needs to move. | The chain's figures justify the new date; it is not a guess either. |
| Export order versus domestic order confirmation | Confirming a new export order for a buyer like Northline Apparel commits the factory to a fixed sailing date inside a schedule like Order A's own 16-week timeline; confirming new domestic Make to Stock production for Cedar & Co. instead updates Cedar & Co.'s own expected stock delivery against its forecast. | The same capacity method applies either way; only what is at stake if the date slips changes. |
Sara at Northline Apparel enquires about a new order similar in shape to Order A, asking whether Delta Garments can deliver it in a stated window; Mona now has to run the full chain of lessons 8.2.1 to 8.2.4 before answering, using Line 1 and Line 2 illustratively as before. The same chain, run for Cedar & Co.'s own domestic planning team instead, updates Cedar & Co.'s expected stock delivery against its forecast rather than a single buyer's fixed sailing date.
| Fact | What it tells Mona |
|---|---|
| The new order would use Line 1 and Line 2 across more than one week | Every one of those lines and weeks must be checked, not a sample |
| Line 1 and Line 2 both show spare capacity in the first week checked (illustrative) | A clean result for one week only, not yet proof for the whole order |
| Mona has not yet checked every later week the order would also need | The chain is incomplete until every affected week is checked |
| Cedar & Co.'s own domestic run uses the identical method | The chain does not change between an export enquiry and a domestic forecast update |
This example is illustrative, not a claimed fixed academy fact, drawing together the course's earlier worked numbers: Line 1's actual daily capacity is about 1,498 pieces (lesson 8.2.2), giving a weekly capacity of about 8,988 pieces over 6 working days (lesson 8.2.3). With Order A's own 4,800 pieces and the new enquiry's 900 pieces already booked, combined utilisation is about 63.4%, comfortably under 100%, so this illustrative new order fits inside Line 1's remaining capacity for that week without any overtime or delay.
Line 1's combined utilisation for week 1: everything booked to Line 1 that week, divided by its actual weekly capacity.
A common mistake is running the capacity check for a new order against only one line or one week in isolation, then confirming a date without also checking every other line and week the same order would actually use across its whole production window. This can hide an overbooking that only appears in a later week the check never reached.
Confirming a delivery date for a new order is not one guess; it is the end result of four smaller checks done in order. First, work out how many pieces the relevant lines can actually make each day and each week. Then add the new order to everything already booked to those lines in the weeks it needs. Check whether any line, in any of those weeks, ends up promised more than it can deliver. If everything fits, confirm the date. If one week falls short, confirm the date together with the paid overtime, split, or delay that closes the gap. If nothing closes the gap in time, offer a different date instead, backed by the same figures.
Sara asks Mona for a confirmed delivery date for a new order similar to Order A, and Mona has to decide whether to answer immediately from memory or run the full capacity plan across every line and week the order would need first.
Sara's request:
Is it enough for Mona to confirm the new order's delivery date once the first week she checks shows spare capacity on both lines?
No. Mona must run the same check across every week the new order would use those lines, not stop at the first week that happens to show spare capacity.
First, this lesson's method requires checking every relevant line and week, not a sample of them.
Second, a single clean week (about 63.4% utilisation, illustrative) says nothing about a different week the order would also need.
Mona confirms a date only once the whole chain, across every affected line and week, has been checked.
Confirming a date after checking only one week, when the new order also needs several later weeks on the same lines, risks discovering an overbooking (lesson 8.2.4) only once production is already running on the confirmed promise.
The same overtime cost calculated in lesson 8.2.4 for a 712-piece shortfall, now falling on a date already promised to the buyer rather than one still open to adjustment.
The cost of that late discovery is the same overtime or missed-date cost already calculated in lesson 8.2.4, made worse because it now falls on a date already promised to the buyer rather than one still open to adjustment before anything was confirmed.
This lesson uses all three sheets of the course's Capacity booking calculator together: enter the new order's requirement into "Line Daily Capacity" and "Multi-Order Booking Sheet" for every week it needs, then check "Overbooking Consequences" for every line and week before confirming a date. Record the final decision, and its figures, on the sheet itself before replying to the buyer. Download link: the course tool, `templates/T08-C02-capacity-booking-calculator.xlsx`.
1. What is the last step before confirming a new order's delivery date, according to this lesson's method?
2. Why is checking only the first week of a multi-week order not enough to confirm its delivery date?
3. A new order fits cleanly on Line 1 in week 1 but would overbook Line 2 in week 3. What should the factory do?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Booking sheet | ورقة الحجز | Fiche de réservation | Rezervasyon tablosu | A shared record that lists which lines are committed to which orders, in which weeks, and how much of each line's capacity each commitment uses, so every booking can be checked against the same total. |
| Overbooking | الحجز الزائد | Surréservation | Aşırı rezervasyon | Booking more quantity onto a line or period than its actual daily capacity can produce, so the booked total exceeds what the line can deliver on time without added cost. |
| Capacity utilisation | معدل استغلال الطاقة الإنتاجية | Taux d'utilisation de la capacité | Kapasite kullanım oranı | The share of a factory's available capacity actually being used by confirmed orders, expressed as a percentage of its maximum output. |
| Theoretical daily capacity | الطاقة اليومية النظرية | Capacité journalière théorique | Teorik günlük kapasite | The number of pieces a line could produce in a day if every available minute converted directly into output at the operation's SMV, before any efficiency loss is applied. |
| Make to Stock (MTS) | إنتاج حسب المخزون | Fabrication sur stock | Stoğa üretim | Producing against the seller's own sales forecast, rather than a single confirmed buyer order. |
This course's method now lets you confirm a delivery date with figures, not guesswork. Course 3 turns to a related question inside a single line: how work is balanced across operations so no single step slows every step after it. Back to the course map