Buyers ask "how long does production take" and get a number. The number is usually optimistic, not because factories lie but because the question is being asked about the wrong thing. Lead time is a chain of gates, and each gate has a different owner.
The gates, in order
Gate 1 — the brief is complete
Owned by you. Nothing starts until the style, measurements, fabric, colour, sizes and trims are all specified. Every week the brief spends incomplete is a week added to the calendar, and it is invisible in the factory's quoted lead time.
Gate 2 — the quotation is accepted
Owned by you. Price, Incoterm, quantity and payment terms agreed in writing.
Gate 3 — the counter sample is made and approved
Owned jointly, and this is where most of the slippage lives. Making the sample is days. Approving it is however long it takes your side to consolidate comments and reply. Two rounds of samples with a week of silence between each is three weeks, and none of it is production time.
Gate 4 — fabric is knitted or dyed
Owned by the mill. Stock fabric in a stock colour is available now. A custom knit or a custom dye lot has its own lead time, and it can be the longest single step in the whole chain. Ask about it separately.
Gate 5 — trims are in
Owned by the trim supplier. Custom woven labels and printed hang tags are runs, and a run is days to weeks. If the labels are late, the garments get finished and wait in a warehouse — which is the most expensive kind of waiting.
Gate 6 — cutting and sewing
Owned by the factory, and the only step that is actually "production". This is the number you get quoted, and it is usually the smallest part of the total.
Gate 7 — finishing, inspection and packing
Owned by the factory. AQL inspection, needle detection, pressing, bagging and cartoning. Short, but it cannot be compressed without cutting a control.
Gate 8 — shipping and clearance
Owned by the freight forwarder and the customs broker. Sea freight is weeks in transit; the paperwork has to be right before it leaves. The date the goods become sellable in your market is later than the date they leave the factory.
The useful way to plan backwards
Start from the date the goods need to be sellable and subtract:
- Clearance and inland delivery — ask your broker, do not guess.
- Transit time — sea or air, from the port of loading.
- Finishing, inspection and packing.
- Cutting and sewing.
- Trim lead time — run in parallel with sewing if possible, not after.
- Fabric lead time — stock or custom, they are different numbers.
- Sampling rounds — count two, and count the days your own comment round will take.
- Brief completion and quotation acceptance.
What is left is your enquiry date. If it is in the past, the schedule is already impossible and it is better to know now.
Where factories can genuinely help
- Parallelising. Trims can be ordered while the sample is being approved. Fabric can be booked while the fit sample is being commented on. A factory that runs these in parallel is meaningfully faster than one that does not.
- Stock fabric. Choosing a stock quality removes the longest single step.
- Combining with a scheduled run. If a mill is already dyeing your colour, your fabric may be able to join that run.
- Partial shipments. If part of the range is ready, shipping it early sometimes beats holding the lot.
Stock styles carry a minimum that varies by style — printed on each product page — and dispatch typically in 7–10 days. That is the only part of this chain where the calendar is genuinely short — because everything upstream is already done.
The single biggest cause of a missed date
A comment round that took ten days instead of two. It is worth agreeing an internal response time on your side before the order starts, and telling the factory what it is.