Production Order

A Production Order is the document that takes a Tech Pack and a quantity and turns them into a plan the factory can act on. It's where the design hand-off ends and the production hand-off begins.

One Production Order is always tied to one Tech Pack / one style. If you're sending multiple styles into production in the same week or month, each one gets its own Production Order.

The order itself doesn't move stock or assign work — its job is to declare the plan: this style, these sizes, this color matrix, this delivery date. The Production Batches it generates are what actually runs on the floor.

When can a Production Order exist?

You can create a Production Order against a Tech Pack in any state — Commercial, Design, Approval, or Production Ready. You can only submit and release it once the Tech Pack reaches Production Ready.

This is deliberate. The point is to let the commercial team open a Production Order while design is still firming up, so the logistics team can start analyzing raw material requirements and putting feelers out to suppliers — instead of waiting weeks for sample sign-off before any sourcing begins.

The trade-off is real but small. A trim or material that's still being changed on the Tech Pack can shift the BOM after the order is drafted, so the materials analysis may need a refresh. But the time saved on long-lead-time fabric and trim sourcing is usually worth more than the rework risk. Every factory decides for itself how early it's comfortable opening a Production Order — some wait for Production Ready, some start as soon as Commercial.

Two ways a Production Order gets created

A Production Order typically begins one of two ways:

• The commercial team decides to produce. A new season is being launched, an influencer drop is scheduled, or stock levels for a style are running low and the warehouse needs replenishment. The commercial team creates the order directly. At this point they can use the Tech Pack's sizes and variants as defaults — or adjust both, since the production reality may need a different size run or color split than the Tech Pack's planning numbers.
• From an approved Sales Order. Once a customer accepts your pricing and quantities on a Sales Order, a single click creates a Production Order pre-linked to that Sales Order — sizes, variants, quantities and the customer all flow through, so production knows who and what it's making for.

Getting there

Awesome bar: Cmd/Ctrl + K → type production order → pick Production Order List

Click path: Desk → GarmentFlow → Production → Orders card → Production Order

To create a new one: + Add Production Order, or from a Sales Order use the Create → Production Order action.

The lifecycle

A Production Order moves through six states:

• Draft — being put together. Nothing is committed.
• Planned — the spec and batch plan are settled, but production hasn't been told to start yet.
• Released — production is authorized. Batches can be created against it.
• In Progress — at least one Batch is running.
• Completed — every Batch has finished and quantities are reconciled.
• Cancelled — the order was killed before completion.

The states matter because downstream documents check them.

The five tabs

Each tab has its own page below. Fill in left-to-right as the plan firms up:

• Setting up the order — Data, Model, Items & Operations, Warehouse Configuration. The spec half.
• Batch planning — Batch tab. Splitting the order into batches by size and line.
• Simulating the plan — Simulator tab. What-if analysis before you release.

The Logistics tab carries Materials Summary — the rolled-up view of every raw material the order will consume. You read it; you rarely type in it.

Image: A Production Order open on the Model tab with the linked Tech Pack and IQ Template visible.

What to do next

Open Setting up the order and walk the Data and Model tabs first. Everything else assumes those are right.