This page explains how to decide the right sourcing origin for a new order's real requirements, for a merchandiser or sourcing manager who must choose an origin before any factory is confirmed, using every factor this course has covered together. This lesson mainly teaches a decision: reading factory price, landed cost, lead time, and minimum order quantity as one connected picture, and considering a split where no single origin fits the whole order. Mona and Omar face this decision whenever Cedar & Co. places a new order combining its usual domestic stock need with a faster top-up.
A person who applies only one earlier lesson in isolation, comparing landed cost but not checking lead time, or checking minimum order quantity but never calculating landed cost, can still choose the wrong sourcing origin. Each factor alone tells only part of the story; a full decision needs factory price, freight and duty, lead time, and minimum order quantity read together, with a split considered wherever no single origin covers the whole order. Without this full picture, a decision built on one factor alone risks the mistakes the earlier lessons in this course already warned against.
You need: lessons 5.1 to 5.4 are useful background, since this lesson combines their separate methods into one decision, but none is strictly required.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: qualifying a brand-new, previously unused factory (Course 1, Supplier Sourcing and Qualification); comparing detailed quotation line items beyond price (Course 2, RFQ and Supplier Quotation Comparison).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| FOB price | The price the factory charges for the garment, delivered on board the ship at its own port. |
| Landed cost | The FOB price plus shipping and duty once goods reach the buyer's own country, USD 3.70 per piece on Order A. |
| Delivered cost | The buyer's true cost once the goods have reached its own warehouse: the ex-factory price plus delivery, freight, insurance and duty for an imported order, or local transport for a domestic one. |
| Lead time | The total time from a confirmed order to the goods reaching their destination. |
| Minimum order quantity | The smallest amount a mill or factory will accept or process as one order. |
| Sourcing technology | Tools that help a buyer find and evaluate factories or mills before placing an order. |
Deciding a sourcing origin for a new order means working through the same sequence every time, whatever the order: gather factory price, freight, and duty for each candidate origin; turn those into a comparable landed cost; check lead time and minimum order quantity as gates the origin must pass for this specific order; and, where no single origin passes both gates for the full quantity, consider splitting the order between two origins instead of forcing a compromise on one. Skipping any one of these steps reopens exactly the mistake an earlier lesson in this course already warned against, whether that is comparing price alone, ignoring a gate, or assuming a whole order must go to one factory.
| What can differ | The shapes you meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic, Make to Stock, base quantity | Cedar & Co.'s usual 10,000-piece domestic base order from Delta Garments passes both gates easily, at a landed cost close to its factory price since no duty applies. | A familiar, domestic origin often needs only a light version of the full method, since most factors already sit comfortably inside what the order needs. |
| Hybrid, export-style top-up | The same order's 5,000-piece top-up, needed faster than Delta Garments' usual domestic lead time allows, may need Factory Y's illustrative faster air-freighted option compared on landed cost, or a split with a second domestic workshop. | A hybrid order can need the full method applied twice, once for its steady base quantity and once for its own top-up portion, since the two portions can have different needs. |
| Export, Make to Order, first order with a new origin | A first export order placed with any new sourcing origin needs the full sequence run in full, since no factor can be assumed familiar the way Delta Garments' figures already are. | The full method matters most exactly when an origin is new, since assumptions from a familiar factory do not carry over. |
| Other product families | A denim order such as Order B's jeans needs the same four-step sequence, but with washing lead time folded into the lead-time gate and Cairo Wash Works' own capacity considered wherever a split is weighed. | The method is the same for any product family; only which stages count toward lead time and which facility's capacity matters can differ. |
Mona, the merchandiser at Delta Garments, and Omar, the owner of Cedar & Co., are deciding sourcing for a new order: a steady 10,000-piece base at Cedar & Co.'s usual pace, plus a 5,000-piece top-up needed in half the usual lead time for a promotional push. For the base quantity, Delta Garments' domestic route passes both gates easily, at a landed cost close to its own FOB price with no duty. For the top-up, Delta Garments' usual lead time is too slow, and Factory Y's illustrative faster option carries its own longer base lead time and higher minimum order quantity, so Mona and Omar instead check whether Delta Garments can run the top-up on an expedited domestic line, applying the same four-step method to that specific portion.
The worked numberThis lesson's worked number applies the full sequence to the top-up, the portion actually in question.
A common mistake is treating a familiar origin as automatically passing every step, checking only landed cost because the factory has been used before, and skipping the lead-time and minimum-order-quantity gates for a specific new requirement such as a faster top-up. As the worked number shows, Cedar & Co.'s usual domestic route needed an expedited line, not its usual one, to pass the lead-time gate for the top-up specifically.
This trap costs real time on every hybrid or unusual order it touches, not a one-time mistake. Assuming the usual domestic route would automatically cover the top-up without checking its lead time against the promotional push's shorter window could have left Cedar & Co. without stock for the exact event the top-up was meant to supply, a cost no landed-cost saving on the base order would offset.
Choosing where to have a new order made is not one single check; it is a short sequence of checks, done in order, for however many separate parts the order actually has. First, work out what the order really needs, in pieces, by when, and for how much money. Then work out what it would really cost delivered, not just what the factory quotes. Then check whether that timing actually works, and whether the factory will accept that exact quantity. If nothing passes both checks for some part of the order, consider splitting that part between two factories instead of forcing it onto one. Doing all of these steps, every time, for every part of the order, is what a full sourcing decision actually is.
Mona, the merchandiser at Delta Garments, and Omar, the owner of Cedar & Co., are finalising sourcing for the new hybrid order. The facts in front of them:
The document Mona and Omar read, the Sourcing Origin Decision Guide's own Compare sheet output for this case:
Should Mona and Omar place the whole 15,000-piece order on Delta Garments' usual domestic route to keep it simple, or split the method's result between the usual route and the expedited line? Decide before you open the answer.
They should follow the Compare sheet's own result, using the usual domestic route for the 10,000-piece base and the expedited domestic line for the 5,000-piece top-up.
Two facts decide this. First, the usual route already passes all four steps for the base quantity, so changing it would add cost for no benefit. Second, the usual route fails the lead-time gate for the top-up specifically, while the expedited line passes all four steps for that exact portion.
Placing the whole order on the usual route to keep it simple would miss the top-up's own promotional deadline, since the usual route's lead time does not fit that portion's need-by date, whatever the base order's own figures show.
This lesson's cost is what skipping the lead-time gate for the top-up specifically would have cost Cedar & Co. If the usual domestic route had been assumed to cover both the base and the top-up without a separate check, the 5,000-piece top-up would have arrived after the promotional push's own fixed date, turning the goods into ordinary stock rather than promotional stock, and losing the extra margin a timed promotion is meant to add. Running the expedited line instead costs more per piece than the usual route, but that extra cost is small next to the lost promotional margin a missed date on 5,000 pieces would represent, which is why every portion of a hybrid order needs its own pass through the full method, not one shared assumption.
Copy this row into the Sourcing Origin Decision Guide's Compare sheet, using the factory price, freight and duty, lead time, and minimum order quantity for each portion of the order you are deciding.
| Check point | Spec says | Found (your entry) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Complete sourcing-origin decision, by portion | Enter landed cost, lead-time gate result, and minimum-order-quantity gate result for each portion of the order and record the recommended origin per portion |
Download the full working sheet, with Cedar & Co.'s base and top-up decision already filled in, from the link on this course's page.
1. What is the correct order of steps in a complete sourcing-origin decision, according to this lesson?
2. Cedar & Co.'s usual domestic route fails the lead-time gate for a 5,000-piece top-up, but an expedited line at the same factory passes it. What should the decision be for the top-up?
3. A brand's order has a 7,000-piece portion needed in 4 weeks that no checked origin can deliver under 9 weeks. What does the method say next?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FOB price | سعر التسليم على ظهر السفينة | Prix FOB | FOB fiyatı | The price the factory charges for the garment, delivered on board the ship at its own port. |
| Landed cost | التكلفة بعد الوصول | Coût rendu | Teslim maliyeti | The FOB price plus shipping and duty once goods reach the buyer's own country, USD 3.70 per piece on Order A. |
| Delivered cost | تكلفة التسليم | Coût rendu | Teslim maliyeti | The buyer's true cost once the goods have reached its own warehouse: the ex-factory price plus delivery, freight, insurance and duty for an imported order, or local transport for a domestic one. |
| Lead time | الوقت الإجمالي للتنفيذ | Délai de production | Teslim süresi | The total time from a confirmed order to the goods reaching their destination. |
| Minimum order quantity | الحد الأدنى لكمية الطلب | Quantité minimale de commande | Minimum sipariş miktarı | The smallest amount a mill or factory will accept or process as one order. |
| Sourcing technology | تقنية التوريد | Technologie de sourcing | Tedarik teknolojisi | Tools that help a buyer find and evaluate factories or mills before placing an order. |
You now know how to decide the right sourcing origin for a new order's real requirements, using factory price, landed cost, lead time, minimum order quantity, and the split option together. The next course builds on this decision. Back to the course map