Shade Lot

What Is a Shade Lot?

Dyeing is a batch process, and colour is matched within a batch rather than across batches. The variation between one batch and the next is small enough to pass most quality standards and large enough to be visible when two pieces are placed side by side, which is the only test that matters commercially. A garment cut across two batches shows the difference at a seam.

The consequence for stock records is that an item code is not a saleable quantity. A system reporting a substantial holding of one code, spread across a dozen small batches, is reporting material that cannot fill a single ordinary order, because the customer needs matched cloth rather than a total. Counting therefore has to capture the batch identifier alongside the quantity, and a count that records only the code produces a figure that is arithmetically correct and commercially meaningless. Small residual batches accumulate quietly, age without moving, and realise a fraction of cost, which is where the valuation questions in this trade concentrate.

Which Sectors Use Shade Lot and Why

Wherever colour is applied in batches and the variation between batches is visible in the finished article.

• Textile processing and garment manufacturing, where panels taken from separate dye charges reveal the mismatch along a seam and the buyer sends the order back.
• Ceramic tiles, where the same issue arises across a floor and batch is printed on every carton for that reason.
• Paints and coatings, where a wall finished from two batches shows a line.
• Yarn and thread manufacture, feeding the same problem into everything made downstream.
• Laminates, veneers and decorative surfaces, subject to the identical constraint.
• It has no application where colour is not a product attribute, which is most of engineering, food and general distribution.

How Shade Lot Works in Practice

1. Cloth or thread goes through the dye vessel together as one charge, and an identifier is allocated to that charge at the point of dyeing.

1. The identifier is printed onto the ticket of every roll from the batch and entered against the stock record, so it survives beyond the physical label.

1. Rolls are stored grouped by that identifier, since separating them physically is what makes matched quantity readable off the rack rather than reconstructed from paperwork.

1. When an order is filled, the requirement is met from a single batch or from batches deliberately matched, because colour drifts between batches enough to show at a seam.

1. At a count, quantity is recorded against the batch rather than only the item code, and the closing position is read as saleable quantities per batch. Leftover part-batches are pulled aside, because cloth insufficient to meet a customer's smallest order fetches only a portion of the going rate.

Shade Lot: A Worked Example

A garment unit in Tiruppur holds 5,450 metres of one printed design across three dye lots.

The system shows a single code with 5,450 metres available, which is why an order for 5,000 metres is accepted. It cannot be filled. Lot 4419-C differs visibly enough that panels cut from it will not match panels from the other two in the same garment, so the real availability against that order is 4,250 metres. Fabric is fungible only within a lot. Where lot identity is not held in the record, a stock figure that is arithmetically correct is commercially wrong, and the discovery happens at cutting rather than at counting.

Common Mistakes With Shade Lot

Reporting quantity without lot identity produces a figure no order can be filled from.

• Adding a code up across every batch and offering the result as available, when an order has to be filled from colour that matches rather than from a total.
• Recording the batch on the ticket but not in the system, so the information dies with the label.
• Re-ticketing rolls after inspection without carrying the batch reference forward, which destroys the identity permanently.
• Consolidating remnants onto a single ticket, so several batches become one and none of them can be matched afterwards.
• Stacking mixed batches in one bay and reading the shelf label instead of the tickets, which fixes the total and leaves the make-up unprovable.
• Carrying small orphan batches at full rate, when material that cannot fill a minimum order realises a fraction of it.

Related Stock Audit Terms

The weight per unit area is what ties length and weight together, so gsm fabric weight is the entry to read next. Every other term in this cluster is listed in the stock audit terms, grouped by the part of the work it belongs to.