This page explains delivery phasing: deciding which week of a selling season each style in a range should reach the shop, rather than shipping every style on the same date regardless of its own production timeline or its role in the season. It is for an agent, buyer or factory that coordinates a multi-style range across more than one production schedule.
At work, an agent such as Meridian Sourcing coordinates styles from different factories, or with different production timelines, that are meant to sell across the same season. Order A's T-shirt has a much shorter production schedule than Order B's jeans, which need extra time for washing. Treating every style as if it must arrive on the same single date is a real problem: it either delays the faster style unnecessarily to match the slower one, or forces the slower style's own schedule to be compressed at extra cost. This lesson gives you the method for phasing delivery so each style reaches the shop at the week that actually suits both its own production schedule and its role in the season.
You need: lesson 2.3's quantity breakdown by colour and size is useful background but not required.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: assembling a complete range and assortment plan that brings range building, classification, quantities and phasing together (lesson 2.5).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Delivery drop | A scheduled point in a season when one or more styles from a range are delivered to the shop together. |
| Phasing | Spreading a range's styles across more than one delivery drop, timed to each style's own production schedule and role in the season. |
| Production timeline | The full sequence of production steps a style must complete, from order placement to being ready for shipment. |
| Sell-through window | The period a style is expected to be actively sold before it is replaced, discounted or withdrawn. |
| Critical path | The sequence of production steps that sets a style's own earliest possible delivery date. |
| Consolidated shipment | Combining more than one style into a single shipment once both are ready, rather than shipping each the moment it is individually finished. |
Every style in a range has its own critical path, the sequence of production steps that sets its own earliest possible delivery date. A range with styles on different critical paths cannot deliver all of them on the same date without either delaying the faster style or compressing the slower one. Phasing solves this: it spreads a range's styles across more than one delivery drop, each timed to the styles that are actually ready for it, so a range reaches the shop across the season rather than all at once.
| What can differ | The shapes you will meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Export, hybrid coordination | Meridian Sourcing phases Fairway Stores' range across Order A's 16-week and Order B's jeans' 22-week schedules from two different production paths, agreeing drop dates with both factories. | An agent sitting between buyer and factories must reconcile more than one critical path into one season plan. |
| Domestic, make to stock | Cedar & Co. phases a basic T-shirt reorder as a continuous drop, replenished as stock runs low, against a seasonal print style delivered once at a single planned drop. | Make-to-stock phasing can mix a continuous drop with a one-off seasonal drop in the same range. |
| Styles on the same critical path | Two styles made by the same factory, in the same fabric, with near-identical production steps, can share one delivery drop without any compression needed. | Not every range needs multiple drops; phasing matches drops to real differences in timeline, not to style count alone. |
| A style needed early for marketing | A style with a longer production timeline but an early planned launch date may need its own critical path started earlier than a shorter-timeline style planned for later in the season. | Phasing considers a style's planned selling window, not only how fast it can be produced. |
Meridian Sourcing, the agent coordinating Fairway Stores' range across two factory timelines, phases the range into two delivery drops. Drop 1 carries Order A's T-shirts, ready at week 16. Drop 2 carries Order B's jeans, ready at week 22, six weeks later. Rather than delaying the T-shirts to wait for the jeans, or rushing the jeans' washing stage to catch up, Meridian Sourcing schedules two separate drops, each timed to its own style's real critical path.
| Question | Forcing one shared delivery date | Phasing into two drops |
|---|---|---|
| What happens to Order A's T-shirt? | Held back six weeks past its own 16-week readiness, for no production reason | Delivered at week 16, as soon as it is genuinely ready |
| What happens to Order B's jeans? | Compressed, risking a rushed wash stage or added cost to catch up | Delivered at week 22, on its own real critical path |
| Who has to manage the mismatch? | Fairway Stores, receiving a delayed or a rushed, higher-risk shipment | Meridian Sourcing, coordinating two clean, on-time drops instead |
Order A's own fixed timeline is 16 weeks; Order B's jeans' own fixed timeline is 22 weeks. The gap between the two sets the phasing interval between Drop 1 and Drop 2.
A common mistake is picking a single delivery date for a whole range and working backward, forcing every style's production to fit it, rather than phasing drops around each style's own real timeline. If Meridian Sourcing had forced Order B's jeans to ship alongside Order A's T-shirt at week 16, six weeks before the jeans' own washing stage could genuinely finish, the jeans would either arrive with incomplete washing or require rushed, higher-cost production to compress six weeks out of a critical path that does not actually compress that far without quality risk.
A range's styles do not all need to arrive in shops on the same date. Each style has its own production timeline, and phasing spreads a range's delivery across the season to match those real timelines, rather than forcing every style to wait for the slowest one or rushing the slowest one to catch the fastest. Styles with genuinely similar ready dates can share one delivery drop; styles with a real gap between them, like Order A's 16 weeks and Order B's jeans' 22 weeks, need separate drops instead. A drop's timing should also fit the season's own selling calendar, not just a factory's own readiness date.
Fairway Stores' buyer wants both styles in shops for the same marketing launch date and asks Meridian Sourcing whether Order B's jeans, on its own 22-week schedule, can be compressed to ship at week 16 alongside Order A's T-shirt.
Meridian Sourcing's note to Fairway Stores' buyer:
Should Order B's jeans be compressed to ship alongside Order A's T-shirt at week 16? Decide before you open the answer.
No. A shared marketing date is a scheduling preference, not a production reality, and Order B's jeans' own critical path does not have 6 weeks of slack to give up without risk.
First, where the 6 weeks would have to come from. Order B's jeans' washing stage takes 3 of its 22 weeks and cannot start before sewing finishes; compressing the timeline would cut directly into washing or finishing, the stages most likely to affect quality.
Second, what compressing that far actually risks. Rushing washing and finishing risks jeans reaching Fairway Stores with an incomplete wash or finish, a quality problem that a shared launch date does not justify.
Meridian Sourcing should hold Order B's jeans to its own 22-week schedule and phase Drop 2 six weeks after Drop 1, proposing a launch approach that uses two drops rather than one shared date. Lesson 2.5 develops how these phased drops fit into a complete range and assortment plan.
Framed in time and risk rather than a single penalty figure: forcing a shared week-16 delivery date would require removing 6 weeks from a 22-week schedule that includes a fixed 3-week washing stage.
Since the washing stage alone accounts for 3 of the 22 weeks and cannot begin before sewing finishes, removing 6 weeks unavoidably cuts into washing, finishing, or both. The realistic alternatives are a quality risk from incomplete washing, or extra cost from expedited processing, neither of which a shared marketing date is worth risking when a six-week-later Drop 2 avoids both entirely.
The workbook's "Phasing" sheet lists each style alongside its own critical-path timeline, its earliest-ready week, and an assigned delivery-drop number, with a check that flags any style assigned to a drop earlier than its own real readiness date.
Meridian Sourcing's own rows record Order A's T-shirt at week 16 in Drop 1, and Order B's jeans at week 22 in Drop 2, with the sheet's built-in check confirming neither style is scheduled ahead of its own genuine critical path.
1. Why does a range with styles on different critical paths need more than one delivery drop?
2. Order A's T-shirt is ready at week 16 and Order B's jeans are ready at week 22. What does this mean for phasing their delivery?
3. Fairway Stores' buyer wants Order B's jeans to ship with Order A's T-shirt at week 16 for a shared launch. What should Meridian Sourcing recommend?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delivery drop | دفعة تسليم | Livraison échelonnée | Teslimat partisi | A scheduled point in a season when one or more styles from a range are delivered to the shop together. |
| Phasing | التوزيع على مراحل | Phasage | Aşamalandırma | Spreading a range's styles across more than one delivery drop, timed to each style's own production schedule and role in the season. |
| Production timeline | الجدول الزمني للإنتاج | Calendrier de production | Üretim zaman çizelgesi | The full sequence of production steps a style must complete, from order placement to being ready for shipment. |
| Sell-through window | نافذة البيع | Fenêtre de vente | Satış penceresi | The period a style is expected to be actively sold before it is replaced, discounted or withdrawn. |
| Critical path | المسار الحرج | Chemin critique | Kritik yol | The sequence of production steps that sets a style's own earliest possible delivery date. |
| Consolidated shipment | شحنة موحّدة | Expédition groupée | Konsolide sevkiyat | Combining more than one style into a single shipment once both are ready, rather than shipping each the moment it is individually finished. |
You now know how to phase a range's delivery across a season. The final lesson brings range building, classification, quantity splitting and phasing together into one complete range and assortment plan. Back to the course map