This page is for anyone who must look at a factory's whole booking sheet, not one order or line at a time, and confirm every line and week on it is genuinely within capacity. This lesson mainly teaches a decision: reading a complete, multi-order sheet well enough to spot every week still needing rework, using every method already covered in this course.
This matters most for a domestic brand such as Cedar & Co., whose planning team must see its bookings at Delta Garments not as isolated weeks but as one shared sheet also carrying Order A's own export commitments, since a change on either side can affect what the other can rely on.
Without checking every line and week, not just the one an order happens to sit on, a merchandiser can confirm a plan that looks complete while one week, changed by an earlier split or slip, still sits over capacity unnoticed. This lesson gives the method: walk the whole sheet row by row, applying free-capacity, split, slip-rework and rush-order checks wherever each applies, until every row is confirmed within capacity or flagged for rework.
You need: every method already covered in this course: free capacity (lesson 11.5.1), splitting across lines (lesson 11.5.2), reworking after a slip (lesson 11.5.3), and weighing a rush order (lesson 11.5.4). You do not need to have assembled a complete multi-order booking plan before.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: any of the four individual methods themselves, already covered in lessons 11.5.1 to 11.5.4, and building the underlying booking sheet, covered in Track 8's Course 2.
| 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. |
| Capacity utilisation | The share of a factory's available capacity actually being used by confirmed orders, expressed as a percentage of its maximum output. |
| 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. |
| Critical path | The chain of sequential stages that sets the shortest possible total time for the order. |
| Hybrid production model | A company that runs Make to Order and Make to Stock lines side by side, usually split by customer, product line or channel. |
A booking sheet covering several orders, lines and weeks is only a complete plan once every row on it has been checked with the method that actually applies to it: free capacity for a new request, combined totals for a split order, a rework check for any order whose critical path has slipped, and a cost comparison for any rush request. Confirming the sheet as complete after fixing only the most recently changed row leaves any other row's own problem undiscovered.
Combined quantity confirmed within capacity across Line 1 and Line 2 in Week 5, before Week 6 is checked separately.
A merchandiser who has only ever checked one order on one line should not assume a whole sheet can be confirmed the same way. What differs is which of this course's methods each row actually needs.
| What can differ | The shapes you meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| A simple row, one order on one line and week | The free-capacity check from lesson 11.5.1 is enough on its own. | Not every row on a complete sheet needs every method; some are already straightforward. |
| A row that is one part of a split order | The row's own share must stay within its own line's free capacity, and all shares of that order must be confirmed to add up correctly, as in lesson 11.5.2. | A split order's completeness can only be judged by looking at every line carrying part of it, not one row alone. |
| A row affected by an earlier slip | The combined total for that line and week, as reworked in lesson 11.5.3, must still hold once every other booking on the same row is added in. | A slip's own rework can itself be undone if a further booking is added to the same week without rechecking. |
| A row created by a rush-order decision | Whichever option was chosen in lesson 11.5.4, bumping, delaying or overtime, must be reflected correctly on every row it touches, not only the rush order's own row. | A rush decision can change more than one row: the rush order's own booking and whatever was bumped or delayed. |
| A domestic Make to Stock brand's full view of the sheet | A brand such as Cedar & Co. needs to see not just its own rows but how its bookings sit alongside an export buyer's own commitments on the same lines, since a hybrid factory runs both models on shared capacity. | Confirming a plan complete for one business model's own rows without checking the other's leaves the shared lines only half-checked. |
Following on from earlier lessons, Line 1 in Week 5 carries Order A's own share of 4,800 pieces, confirmed within its weekly capacity of about 8,988 pieces (lesson 11.5.1). Line 2 in Week 5 carries Cedar & Co.'s own domestic run, originally 3,600 pieces, confirmed within Line 2's weekly capacity of about 6,912 pieces. The same run's 4-day fabric-delivery slip, from lesson 11.5.3, then moves it into Week 6, where Line 2 already carries a 4,200-piece share of Order A, giving a combined 7,800 pieces against Line 2's weekly capacity, still unresolved.
| Fact | What it tells Cedar & Co.'s planning team |
|---|---|
| Line 1, Week 5: Order A's own share | 4,800 pieces, confirmed within capacity |
| Line 2, Week 5: Cedar & Co.'s own run, as originally planned | 3,600 pieces, confirmed within capacity |
| Line 2, Week 6: Order A's share plus Cedar & Co.'s slipped run | 4,200 + 3,600 = 7,800 pieces, still overbooked |
| Line 2's weekly capacity | About 6,912 pieces (illustrative) |
This example is illustrative, not a claimed fixed academy fact: Line 1's Week 5 row (4,800 against about 8,988 pieces) and Line 2's Week 5 row (3,600 against about 6,912 pieces) both confirm within capacity on their own. Line 2's Week 6 row, once Cedar & Co.'s slipped run is added to Order A's existing 4,200-piece share, totals 7,800 pieces against Line 2's weekly capacity of about 6,912 pieces, an overbooking of 888 pieces that the complete plan must still show as unresolved until it is reworked.
Line 2's combined total in Week 6: Order A's own share plus Cedar & Co.'s slipped run.
The amount by which Line 2's Week 6 combined booking still exceeds its weekly capacity, unresolved on the complete sheet.
A common mistake is treating a booking plan as complete once the one order or week that prompted a question has been fixed, without checking whether other rows on the same sheet, affected by an earlier split, slip or rush decision, are still overbooked and simply have not been noticed yet.
A factory's whole booking sheet is only a finished plan once every line and week on it has been checked, not just the one order someone happened to ask about. Some rows are simple and need only one quick check. Others are part of a split order, or were moved by a slip, or were changed by a rush-order decision, and each of these needs its own proper check applied. Go through the whole sheet, row by row, and use whichever method actually fits each row. Only say the plan is finished once every row is confirmed within capacity or has a written-down fix. Fixing the one row someone noticed, and stopping there, can leave another row quietly over capacity.
Omar's team at Cedar & Co. asks Mona to confirm the whole shared booking sheet is now correct, after she reworked Line 2's Week 6 overbooking from lesson 11.5.3 by moving part of the slipped run to Line 1. Mona confirms Week 6 is now within capacity and tells Omar's team the plan is complete, without rechecking Line 1's own Week 6 row, which now carries the moved quantity in addition to whatever was already booked there.
Karim's note to Mona:
Is it correct for Mona to confirm the whole booking sheet as complete once Line 2's Week 6 overbooking is resolved, without rechecking Line 1's Week 6 row?
No. Mona must recheck Line 1's Week 6 row now that it carries the quantity moved off Line 2, using the free-capacity method from lesson 11.5.1, before confirming the whole sheet complete.
First, moving a quantity off one row to fix an overbooking changes what the row it moves to must be checked against, so that row needs its own fresh check, not an assumption that it still has room.
Second, a complete plan is confirmed row by row, not by the single row that originally prompted the question, so Line 1's Week 6 row must be checked with the same rigour as Line 2's was.
Mona should recheck Line 1's Week 6 combined booking against its own weekly capacity before telling Omar's team the whole sheet is confirmed complete.
If Mona had confirmed the sheet complete without rechecking Line 1's Week 6 row, an overbooking could sit undiscovered on that row until production was already under way, the same kind of late discovery lesson 11.5.3 already showed costs more the later it is found.
Line 1's own free capacity in Week 6 before the moved quantity is added, the figure Mona must check the moved quantity against, reusing lesson 11.5.1's method, before confirming the sheet complete.
A booking sheet confirmed complete without every affected row rechecked is not actually complete; it only looks complete until the unchecked row's own problem is discovered, at whatever later cost that discovery brings.
This lesson uses the "Full Portfolio Booking Plan" sheet of the course's Order booking planner, which lists every line, order and week across a factory's active bookings, calculates utilisation for each row, and flags any row whose booked quantity exceeds its line's weekly capacity. Enter every row currently active, and let the sheet flag every overbooked row at once, not only the one most recently changed. Download link: the course tool, `templates/T11-C05-order-booking-planner.xlsx`.
1. A merchandiser fixes an overbooking on Line 2 by moving 600 pieces to Line 1. What must happen before the whole sheet is confirmed complete?
2. A complete booking sheet has ten rows. Nine rows are confirmed within capacity. What is the correct status of the plan?
3. Why can fixing the one row that first drew attention still leave a booking sheet incomplete?
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Critical path | المسار الحرج | Chemin critique | Kritik yol | The chain of sequential stages that sets the shortest possible total time for the order. |
| Hybrid production model | نموذج إنتاج مختلط | Modèle de production hybride | Hibrit üretim modeli | A company that runs Make to Order and Make to Stock lines side by side, usually split by customer, product line or channel. |
You have completed every lesson in this course: accepting or rejecting a new order, splitting an order across lines, reworking a plan after a slip, weighing a rush order, and now assembling a complete booking plan. The next course continues the tracker skills this course builds on. Back to the course map