What garment education should teach — and usually does not

Gap one: the hand-offs between departments

Curricula are usually organised by department because that is how faculties are organised. Production problems are not. A fit comment that never reached the pattern room, a fabric substitution nobody told planning about — these are hand-off failures, and a graduate who only knows departments has no vocabulary for them.

Gap two: measurement discipline

Courses teach what an SMV is. Fewer teach that two people timing the same operation will disagree, that the disagreement must be quantified, and that a planning number built on one untested observation will fail in week three. The same applies to measurement audits and defect classification: agreement between inspectors is a skill you practise, not a definition you memorise.

• Repeat the same measurement and record your own spread
• Calibrate defect calls against a colleague before trusting a report
• State assumptions next to every number you hand over

Gap three: cost consequence

Technical decisions are costing decisions. A tighter tolerance, an extra trim, a heavier interlining — each moves consumption, wastage or minutes. Students who never connect a technical choice to a cost sheet are surprised when a good technical idea is rejected, and they cannot argue for the ones worth keeping.

Gap four: writing that a factory can act on

Most floor failures I have investigated were communicated badly before they became expensive. Being able to write six clear lines — what happened, where, how many, suspected cause, action taken, what is needed from whom — is a technical skill and deserves teaching time.

Study these next

• Reading and Building a Tech Pack
• Garment Costing — First Principles
• Root Cause on the Floor — 5-Why and Fishbone
• Production Planning Essentials

Roles this article is written for

Training & Skill Development Lead · Merchandiser