Dispatching to External Units

The dispatch is the moment stock leaves your factory for a subcontractor. It's a small physical act — driver, gate pass, signed receipt — but inside GarmentFlow it triggers several things: stock movement, schedule update, cost-source linking.

The flow

1. A Production Batch has an Operation Step pointing at an External Production Unit.
2. Materials and/or WIP have already been transferred to the External Unit's warehouse via Material Request → Stock Entry (the External Unit's warehouse is owned by your company but physically at the supplier's site).
3. When the supplier confirms they're ready, your dispatcher creates a Handoff OLE from the source operation to the external operation.

The OLE captures: from operation, from unit, to operation (external), to unit (external), quantity, posting datetime, optionally the driver's acceptance signature.

What GarmentFlow does on dispatch

When the Handoff OLE submits:

• The Batch Operation Step for the external operation moves to In Progress.
• Dispatch Date on the Step is set to the OLE's posting datetime.
• If the External Unit has a Default Cost Source (Blanket Order, PO, or PI), the Step is pre-linked to it for the eventual cost rollup.
• The Step appears in the Recovery Queue of the Logistics App, waiting for the goods to come back.

Tracking who has what

The External Unit Balance report is the canonical view of "what's at which supplier right now." For each External Unit, it shows:

• Items in their warehouse.
• Quantities (current stock).
• Dispatched but not yet recovered, per Batch.
• Days since dispatch.

Your subcontractors should never wonder what's at their facility from you. They open the Supplier Portal; they see exactly the same data.

Getting the cost source right at dispatch

The cost source decides how the External Unit's operation gets charged when the Batch completes. The right cost source depends on your relationship with the supplier:

• Blanket Order — best for ongoing relationships where you've pre-negotiated a unit rate. Cost is locked at the BO rate; usage draws against the BO as Batches consume it.
• Purchase Order — best for one-off or per-batch arrangements where rate is negotiated per order.
• Purchase Invoice — best when the supplier's rate isn't agreed in advance and you want to wait for the actual invoice. Carries more uncertainty in the cost rollup until the PI lands.

Most factories settle on Blanket Orders for their core subcontractors and use POs for occasional ones. Set the default on the External Production Unit; it's the field the Operation Step inherits.

A working example

10am Thursday. Batch B-2026-0418 has 320 units in WIP Stitching ready to go to your wash subcontractor "AquaWash."

The dispatcher:

1. Opens the Logistics App, taps Logistics, picks B-2026-0418 from the Dispatch Queue.
2. Confirms the 320 units quantity.
3. AquaWash's truck driver arrives. Driver signs on the tablet.
4. Dispatcher submits the Handoff OLE.

GarmentFlow:

• Posts the OLE. The Stock Ledger reflects the move from WIP Stitching to AquaWash's warehouse (which is your warehouse, physically at AquaWash's facility).
• Moves the Wash operation's Step to In Progress.
• Sets Dispatch Date = 10:14am.
• Pre-links the Step to AquaWash's Blanket Order (BO-2026-12) at the agreed wash rate.
• Adds the Batch to the Recovery Queue with a 3-day expected return window.

Three days later, AquaWash returns 318 units (2 short, recorded as Scrap). The Recovery flow closes the loop.

What to do next

The other half of the cycle: Recovering from external units.