First-pass yield on a cut-and-sew line: what the wall number hides

First-pass yield is a clean phrase: pieces that left the line without coming back. On many sewing halls near Tbilisi the number on the wall is cleaner than the corner under the window, where repair bundles wait for a free overlock.

Three places the figure leaks

Repair that is not a return. If a waistband is opened at the end of the line and resewn before packing, some halls still call that first pass. The buyer’s auditor will not. Count the resew as a miss even if the piece never went to a separate repair room.

The second hour. A line that “always” hits the number often does so after a messy first hour while tickets, sizes, and trims arrive. If you drop that hour from the count, the wall is a hope, not a yield.

Specials and samples. A few pieces pulled for a visiting buyer, a photo, or a fit session disappear from both pass and fail. Over a month they are a small leak. Over a season they become the story of why packed quantity never matches cut quantity.

How to read the week

When we sit with a sewing quality lead, we ask for packed quantity, cut quantity, repair tickets, and the pile that has no ticket. The pile is the briefing. A Plant Quality Review that cannot find that pile will say so, rather than bless the wall.

If your hall already includes repairs in the miss column, look next at whether needle damage and seam pucker are listed as two causes or lumped as “sewing.” Lumping is how a blunt knife and a wrong needle size survive a Friday meeting together.