Principle 3: Collaborative Production Planning

Ensure your critical path and production planning support decent and stable employment for the workers in your supply chain.

Overview of Principle 3: Collaborative Production Planning 

How you engage with your suppliers to plan and manage production has a big influence on their ability to provide stable employment with decent working conditions. 

Lead times that are too short, excessive sampling, inaccurate forecasts, and delays against the critical path—such as late changes to specifications and order volumes—undermine your suppliers’ ability to plan factory capacity and maximise financial efficiency. This can contribute to an over-reliance on temporary labour, excessive overtime for workers, and low wages.

Principle 3 focuses on planning production in a way that supports good working conditions by: 

• Sampling efficiently.
• Developing accurate, fit-for-purpose tech packs. 
• Distributing commercial risk fairly, rather than placing it disproportionately on suppliers.
• Ensuring the critical path enables responsible production.
• Tracking internal adherence to the critical path.
• Minimising late changes in design or volume.
• Taking responsibility for delays you cause or contribute to.
• Committing to factory capacity in good time.
• Balancing orders to reduce sharp peaks and troughs. 
• Forecasting transparently and improving forecast accuracy.

Read Principle 3 of the Common Framework