Apparel production management software for fashion brands
Plan production runs, issue purchase orders to vendors, track work-in-progress, and keep production tied to the rest of operations — all in one connected system.
Built for multi-channel apparel brands managing wholesale, DTC, marketplaces, warehouses, 3PLs, and growing operational complexity.
Trusted by modern apparel brands that can't afford disconnected operations
TL;DR
- ✓Production orders, WIP, and vendor coordination in one system, not spreadsheets.
- ✓Connected to PLM, purchasing, and inventory so the status of every style is visible end-to-end.
- ✓Visibility into offshore factories without owning them, through direct integration, portals, and email handoffs where needed.
Friday 5pm · “Two weeks late.”
The email that breaks your ship calendar — and you don't see until Monday
When production tracking runs in a weekly master spreadsheet, bad news travels at the speed of manual updates. Good news travels slower.
The cost of that lag shows up as missed ship windows, short shipments, and chargebacks.
It's Wednesday. A Tier 1 factory is running late. Nobody on your team knows yet.
They emailed the update Friday at 5pm. Your production tracker lives in a Google Sheet that gets updated Monday mornings, when somebody has time. Between Friday evening and Monday morning, three dependent styles got promised to buyers. Tuesday afternoon, you confirmed a prebook commitment with a wholesale partner assuming the styles would land on time.
Now it's Wednesday, the spreadsheet is finally updated, and your ops lead is pulling down five promises that can't be kept. Customer service is drafting apology emails. The merchandising team is rebuilding the launch calendar for the third time this season. Finance is recalculating the revenue forecast.
Meanwhile, two more factories on the same delivery cycle are running silent. Their Friday emails will arrive this Friday. Nobody will read them until Monday.
Production tracking that lives outside the system is a lag you can't afford.
When production is offsite, visibility has to be on point
Most apparel brands don't own their factories. Production happens across a mix of contract manufacturers, cut-and-sew houses, and overseas partners, each with their own reporting cadence and format, each subject to the raw-material and capacity shocks that ripple through the apparel supply chain.
When production lives outside the ERP, tracking becomes a part-time detective job. Somebody rebuilds a master schedule in Google Sheets every Monday. Fabric POs are tracked separately from cut tickets. Factory delays reach operations late, and by then commitments have already been made on bad assumptions.
Uphance puts production orders, vendor status, WIP, and materials into one system, tied to the BOMs, POs, and inventory positions that depend on them. When a factory flags a delay, the impact is visible immediately.
What Uphance production management helps you control
Production planning
Plan runs across styles, vendors, and seasons with visibility into timing and readiness.
Vendor and factory coordination
Issue production orders. Track vendor status. Manage factories where your product data and inventory already live.
Work-in-progress tracking
Cut · sew · finish · ship. Teams see where each order stands without asking.
Materials and component visibility
Fabric and trim status tied to the production orders that depend on them.
Batch production
Bulk orders move through consistent stages without manual reconciliation.
Cross-team collaboration
Design, sourcing, production, warehouse, and ops share one production reality.
Production runs the business. It shouldn't run on spreadsheets.
Every apparel brand knows this in theory. In practice, production tracking is the first place growing brands cut corners because “we'll fix it later.” Later becomes three missed seasons and a chargeback meeting.
Production isn't an accounting exercise. It's the operational heart of an apparel brand. The system that tracks it should sit next to inventory, purchasing, and orders — not next to the coffee list.
Spreadsheet production tracking vs Uphance
| Feature | Spreadsheet tracking | Uphance |
|---|---|---|
| Tracks WIP stages | ✓ (manual) | ✓ (structured, real-time) |
| Tied to BOM and materials | No | ✓ |
| Tied to incoming stock and inventory | No | ✓ |
| Real-time updates | Depends on who updated last | ✓ |
| Vendor access | Shared sheet (risky) | ✓ Role-based access |
| Partial receiving and landed cost | Manual reconciliation | ✓ Native |
| Auditable change history | No | ✓ |
| Visibility for commercial team | They ask. Somebody answers. | ✓ Self-serve |
| Delay impact analysis | Manual cross-reference | ✓ Surfaced automatically |
| Time to "where is style X?" | 10 minutes across tools | Seconds, one screen |
| Cost to maintain | Hidden in ops headcount | Part of Uphance |
What results do Uphance customers see?
“Uphance has given us real-time control over our inventory and orders. It's transformed our fashion inventory management by unifying everything in one place.”
What Lufema saw after unifying production and distribution
| Metric | Before Uphance | After Uphance |
|---|---|---|
| Production-to-distribution handoff | Manual entry | Finished goods visible immediately |
| Scalability | Headcount constrained | 3 new brands + 100+ retailers onboarded, no new ops hires |
| Operational reporting cadence | Delayed reconciliation | Weekly data-driven decisions |
Who is this built for, and who is it not for?
Uphance probably isn't for you if…
- ✗You don't do production — you buy finished goods only.
- ✗You run a single factory you fully control, with a tight internal system.
- ✗You need deep MRP (material requirements planning) at enterprise scale.
Uphance is built for you if…
- ✓You work with multiple contract manufacturers, cut-and-sew houses, or overseas factories.
- ✓Production status lives in a spreadsheet and somebody on your team is a part-time production detective.
- ✓You've missed ship windows because delays surfaced too late.
- ✓You want production tied to purchasing, inventory, and orders in one system.
- ✓You have in-house production and want it connected to distribution, not as a separate workflow.
What does a Uphance demo look like?
45 minutes, prepped around your production model:
- 1Your production map. Factories, cycles, handoffs, walked through by us before we open anything.
- 2A production order, end to end. Created from a tech pack, issued to a factory, WIP updates, receiving.
- 3Material coordination. How materials POs tie to production POs to inventory.
- 4Delay handling. What happens when a factory flags a delay, who sees it, when, and what actions surface.
- 5Migration and integration scope. A real read on connecting to your current production tracker and factory network.
Key production management capabilities
How does Uphance implementation work?
Discovery
Factory network, production cycles, and handoff patterns mapped.
Tailored demo
Your production model rebuilt inside Uphance.
Configuration
Workflows set up per factory, stage, and category.
Vendor onboarding
Role-based access for factory contacts where direct portal makes sense.
Go-live + hypercare
Launch with support through the first full production cycle.
Frequently asked questions
What does Uphance integrate with?
| Accounting | QuickBooks · Xero · Exact · Pennylane (vendor payments and cost tracking) |
| API | Uphance API for factory and vendor integrations |
Ready to see production, connected?
Start with a brief discovery conversation. We'll learn how your production runs today, assess fit, and prepare a demo around your vendors, cycles, systems, and priorities.