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An in GarmentFlow moves along two dimensions at once: the operational work that turns a commitment into shipped goods, and the commercial state of the deal itself. This page is the mental model for both dimensions, how they relate, and where the MO and the readiness engine sit. The task detail for each step lives on its module page. This builds on the style-centric model: an order runs a style, it does not contain one.

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The mental model: two parallel dimensions

Every order in GarmentFlow carries:
  • A work phase — where the operational work currently stands, from the first inquiry through to shipped. This is the spine of the order’s day-to-day lifecycle.
  • A commercial status — where the deal itself stands as a commitment, from inquiry through confirmed and on to completed or cancelled. This is the commercial-side label on the order.
The two dimensions are tracked independently and move at their own pace. Confirming an order (a commercial-status change) is a different action from moving past the inquiry phase (a work-phase advance), and the system does not gate one on the other. They are two readouts of the same order, kept in step by the team rather than wired together by the platform.

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The work phase — the spine

The work phase is a fixed sequence of named stages an order moves through, one at a time:
  1. Inquiry. The order has been opened but the work hasn’t started — terms are still being scoped.
  2. Development sample. A first sample is in development with the factory so the design can be reviewed.
  3. Quotation. A price has been worked up for the customer.
  4. PI sent. A has gone to the customer.
  5. PO received. The customer’s purchase order is in hand and the deal is committed.
  6. Procurement. Materials are being bought against the order’s approved .
  7. Production samples. Pre-production samples are being made and reviewed ahead of the bulk run.
  8. Bulk production. The main run is on the floor.
  9. Shipped. Goods have left the factory toward the customer.
The work phase is the spine because it is what the merchandiser drives day to day — every stage is a real piece of operational work, and the order’s readiness, schedules, and downstream documents all hang off it.

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How a phase advances

Some advances are taken by hand, when the team confirms a step has happened. Others happen automatically the moment the system sees the trigger:
  • The advance to PI sent happens automatically when a proforma invoice is created for the order.
  • The advance to procurement happens automatically when the order’s first BOM is approved — that’s the signal the material list is settled enough to buy against.
  • The advance to bulk production happens automatically when the pre-production sample is approved.
  • The advance to shipped happens automatically when a shipment for the order goes in transit.
The remaining advances — moving past inquiry, the development sample, the PI, and procurement — are taken manually by the team when each step is done.

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Phases advance one at a time and don’t rewind

The work phase moves forward one stage at a time; it never skips ahead and never moves back. A phase advance that’s already been taken stays taken, even if an upstream decision is revisited later — for example, withdrawing a BOM approval does not rewind the order to its earlier phase. To change values on an upstream artifact after the order has moved past the phase its approval triggered, the canonical path is to open a new version of that artifact and approve it (the per-order pin tracks which version each order is working from; see BOM, cost sheet, and artifact versions).

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The commercial status — the parallel track

Alongside the work phase, the order carries a commercial status the team sets to communicate where the deal stands as a commitment. Statuses include inquiry, quotation, confirmed, sample, pre-production sample, production, shipping, completed, and cancelled. Two statuses do most of the commercial work:
  • Confirmed — the customer has committed and the deal is on. Confirmation is the commercial signal that the rest of the team can plan against — that the styles, quantities, and ship date are real. It is set by the team on the order, not derived from the work phase.
  • Cancelled — the deal is off. An order can be moved to cancelled from almost any earlier status, so the team has a clean way to stop work when a customer walks away. Cancellation is terminal; it isn’t reversed.
Completed marks the deal closed from the commercial side once the order has shipped, billed, and been paid. Like cancelled, completed is terminal. The status changes when the team marks it. The one place the system writes status itself is when production work is started on the order — creating the order’s production record flips its status to production, so the order stops being shown as something that hasn’t begun.

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Status and phase don’t gate each other

Because the two dimensions are tracked independently, an order can carry combinations that look unusual at first — for example, a status of production while the work phase is still in procurement (the team has flipped the commercial label even though the floor hasn’t started). Read each label for what it is: phase says what the work has reached; status says what the deal is. The team’s discipline keeps them aligned; the platform does not force them in lockstep.

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Where the MO sits on the spine

A — the production-spec document for an order’s run of a style — is created and issued on the work-phase spine. Practically, that happens once the order has the approved BOM (and ideally cost sheet) it should be built against; in phase terms, that is typically around procurement through bulk production. Issuing an MO does two things:
  • It pins the MO to specific versions of the order’s tech pack, BOM, cost sheet, packing instructions, and QC standard. A later revision of any of those on the style does not change what the issued MO references — the factory sees the picture it was issued against.
  • It freezes the MO’s rendered content at the moment of issue. Edits to a pinned artifact’s content after issue do not show through on the issued MO’s document.
Issuing is not gated by the system on which versions are approved. The discipline the team practices is to approve the BOM and cost sheet for the order before issuing the MO, so the picture frozen at issue is the picture the team stands behind. The platform trusts the team to follow that discipline; see style vs. order vs. MO for the rule of thumb. Issuing the MO does not by itself advance the work phase or change the commercial status — those are tracked separately, advanced by the events listed above.

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Where readiness sits

The readiness engine is layered on top of both dimensions. It reads the same work the team is doing — BOM approvals, fitting sign-offs, material receipts, issued documents — and computes, per order, what is done and what is still outstanding. The work phase tells you which stage an order has reached; the readiness engine tells you what inside that stage is still missing and whether the ship date is in danger. The two readouts complement each other: the phase progression is the linear spine, the readiness view is the checklist on top of it.

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Orders aren’t deleted

Once an order has been created, it stays in the system. There is no delete action on an order — the canonical way to stop work on a deal that is no longer happening is to cancel it, which leaves the record on file with a clear commercial label that nothing further should be done against it. This keeps the audit trail intact for downstream documents and reports that already reference the order.

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Where you encounter the model

  • On the order detail page — the order’s header carries its commercial status, and the work-phase progression sits alongside the order’s overview and readiness views.
  • In the Orders module — the list view surfaces commercial status as the at-a-glance label per order.
  • Across downstream work — the readiness engine, the production timeline, and the documents and conversion chain all read the order’s work phase to decide what is unblocked.