Schedule Follow-Up So the Ship Date Holds
A factory rarely tells you it is late until it is too late to matter. We agree a milestone plan at the purchase order, check progress against it on site and by phone, and raise the flag the week a milestone slips, not the week the container was due. Reply within 24 business hours.
Plan, check, flag, push
Milestone plan at PO
Material in, tooling ready, first article, 50 percent, finishing, packing, loading. Dates agreed with the factory in Vietnamese and sent to you in English.
Progress against plan
Counted on the floor at every visit and asked for by phone between visits. Plan against actual is the first line of the weekly status.
Early warning
A milestone two days late is flagged to you the same week, with the cause and the factory's recovery plan, or the lack of one.
Escalation and expediting
Daily calls to the factory owner, a visit to the subcontractor, a second shift negotiated, a partial shipment proposed. You choose; we push.
Six causes, and where the plan catches each one
| Cause | Where we catch it |
|---|---|
| Material not ordered or not arrived | Material PO date and arrival date on the plan; checked at the pre-production review |
| Subcontracted process late | Plating, anodising, heat treatment, printing named on the plan with their own dates; visited or called before the batch goes out |
| Capacity double-booked | Current orders on the floor counted at the audit and at every visit; a new big order from another buyer is a flag |
| Drawing revision not on the floor | Revision checked at the pre-production review and the first article; the approved sample sealed on the line |
| Holidays and weather | Tet, national holidays and the rainy season on the plan from day one, with the factory’s real closing dates |
| Your own approvals | Sample, artwork and change approvals you owe the factory listed in the weekly status with a date, so the delay is never ours or yours by surprise |
Inside order control, or on its own
Schedule follow-up is part of the order control and embedded PM packages, where the visits feed the plan. On its own it covers the plan, the calls and the weekly status per supplier, without visits, under its own contract.
Questions about schedules
Can you guarantee the ship date?
No, and nobody honest can: the factory makes the goods. What we do is make a slip visible weeks earlier than the factory would tell you, give you the options while they still exist, and push the factory in Vietnamese every day until the date is back. That is usually the difference between a late container and a late apology.
What is the most common cause of delay?
Not the factory’s own line. It is a material that has not arrived, a subcontractor late with the plating or the anodising, a drawing revision the floor never saw, or a Tet holiday nobody planned around. The milestone plan puts a date on each of those, so the slip shows up where it starts.
Is schedule follow-up sold on its own?
Yes, as an ongoing service without visits for buyers who already have inspection covered. Most buyers take it inside order control, where the same visits feed the plan.