Ways To Avoid Late Shipment Of Export Orders And Related Penalty

Late delivery of fabrics has always been the nightmare for both the fabric suppliers and the apparel exporters. The supply chain integrity in the textile and apparel industry depends largely on the timely delivery of fabric. Still, most of the fabric exporters from India face this issue every now and then, sometimes resulting in the buyers' demands of shipping the merchandise by air or cancellation of order or slapping of penalty. The shipment charges play a major role in deciding the final cost of the fabric. It exceeds heavily when manufacturers are bound to deliver the buyer's order by air shipment, which is prohibitively expensive. Even a single air shipment cost may wipe out the profit of various other orders only to make the cargo companies richer. At times, the cost of shipment is 40 to 50 percent higher than the actual cost of garments and hence, it alters the supply-demand chain and add to the overall cost of garments. The only full-proof solution is to manage the timely delivery. Exporters from India believe in well-defined pattern to determine whether a fabric shipment would go on time or slightly late. The management must begin from the very first day of order placement as each textile order passes through a lengthy process in one or several ways such as:

• Almost every order is tailor-made with some specific requirement and varies from order to order.
• Raw material standards also vary and same method, process and technical conditions may not give the same result every time.
• Sometimes, quality approval is subjective and conditional.
• The internal and external ambiance can yield slight changes in the fabric no matter same process control route is followed.

The aforementioned are few of the challenges which cause delay in delivery of final order creating great troubles for the manufacturers, exporters and buyers. A few qualitative precautions can ensure minimum variation and negligible wastage of resources finally resulting in timely delivery and lowered cost. Placement of order: It is the most important and complex component, which is very difficult to replace or correct if any fault is encountered. The manufacture must understand the requriements with clinical precision to avoid last minute hassle and delay in delivery. Manufacturing plan: It is one of the most crucial stages as several orders may be running at a single time and hence, product planning and control must be effective to avoid delays. Raw material plan: It should be as per the buyer's demand or manufacturers may have to undergo entire manufacturing process again to prevent the cancellation of order.