Winter Season Planning With ERP for Bahadurgarh’s Footwear Units

Why does winter decide the year for Bahadurgarh footwear units?

Because most of the money is made in a few cold months. A Tribune report from March 2023, quoting the Footwear Park Association, said that more than half of the Bahadurgarh footwear industry’s annual turnover comes in the winter season, from October to February, and that production usually starts in July.

The same report called Bahadurgarh the biggest hub of footwear in North India, with over 2,000 large, medium and small units in the Modern Industrial Estate (MIE), the HSIIDC Footwear Park and nearby areas making shoes, sandals and slippers. These figures come from the association, so treat them as an industry estimate. The Haryana MSME department lists the Footwear Park in Sector 17 as a planned and developed park of 316 acres on the highway linking Delhi with Rohtak and Hisar.

The report also showed the risk: after a short cold spell and fewer weddings in November, the association said a large stock of shoes stayed unsold that winter. A season this concentrated punishes guesswork, which is why planning matters more than speed.

What does a month-by-month winter plan look like?

Work backwards from the October selling peak: orders and material in August, full production through autumn, dispatch at the peak, and clearance by February. The table below is a general planning frame, not a fixed rule. Shift it to match your dealers and your own past data.

How do you forecast demand for winter styles and size sets?

Start from dealer pre-orders and last winter’s sales, broken down by article, colour and size, not by total pairs. A plan that looks right in total pairs can still leave dealers with no size 8 and too many size 10.

• Closed shoes and boots: the core winter range. Plan them from pre-orders, then hold some material back for repeat orders once the cold sets in.
• Festival and wedding demand: Diwali and the wedding season often overlap with the winter peak, and both shift by date each year. Mark them on the plan so formal and fancy articles are ready before, not after.
• School shoes: they follow the school calendar, not the weather. Many Haryana schools begin their session in April, so school-shoe production often fits well in January and February, after the winter rush.
• Size sets: dealers usually buy in a fixed size ratio per carton. Store that ratio per article in the ERP, so one order line creates the right pairs for every size.

How does an ERP plan raw material and production across lines?

The ERP multiplies confirmed orders by the bill of materials for each article and size range, then compares the result with stock and open purchase orders. What is left is your shortage list, and it tells you what to buy and when.

• Materials: soles (PU, PVC, EVA, rubber or others), upper material, lining, insole, laces, adhesives and packing. Suppliers and lead times differ, so record the usual lead time against each item.
• Line scheduling: work orders move through cutting, stitching, lasting, sole attaching, finishing and packing. Assign each work order to a line, and the ERP shows which line is overloaded in which week.
• Job work: when stitching or uppers go outside, each challan records material sent, pairs received back, rejections and the balance still with that job worker. Ask your CA about job-work compliance, such as the ITC-04 return.
• Rejections and wastage: record them by stage, so the next BOM reflects real consumption, not the ideal figure.

These are standard production and inventory modules that we configure for each unit. Our ERP software development work covers BOMs, work orders, machine scheduling, quality control and wastage on one database with purchase and accounts.

How should dealer orders, dispatch and e-way bills be handled?

Book every dealer order by article and size ratio, pack against it with barcode scans, and raise the invoice and e-way bill from the same record. Then what leaves the gate matches what was billed.

1. Book the dealer order with article, colour, size ratio, rate and promised dispatch week.
2. Reserve finished stock against the order, or send it to the production plan if stock is short.
3. Scan pairs and cartons at packing, so short or wrong sizes are caught before loading.
4. Generate the GST invoice and, where required, the e-invoice and e-way bill from the packed record.
5. Update dealer outstanding and send the dealer a dispatch note on WhatsApp.

E-way bill and e-invoice rules depend on consignment value, your turnover and the type of movement. Our GST e-invoice and e-way bill guide for Haryana manufacturers explains them. If dealers place orders themselves, a B2B ordering app for footwear dealers can feed orders straight into the ERP.

How do you protect cash flow and dealer credit in the season?

Set a credit limit and payment terms for each dealer, and check outstanding before every dispatch. In a peak season, material is paid for months before dealer payments come back, so unchecked credit can strain working capital.

• Dealer-wise outstanding with ageing (current, overdue and long overdue).
• An alert, or an approval step, when a new order would take a dealer above the agreed limit.
• Expected collections by week, compared with supplier payments due.
• Tally integration, so accounts are not keyed in twice.

What should you do with stock at the end of the season?

Start the clearance plan in January, using size-wise stock ageing, rather than waiting for February. The earlier you see slow articles and broken size sets, the more options you have.

• Pull a list of articles with stock but no orders in the last few weeks.
• Rebuild broken size sets by moving pairs between articles or dealers, where possible.
• Offer slow articles to dealers who sold them well, before cutting rates for everyone.
• Record dealer returns against the original invoice and credit note.
• Mark carry-forward stock separately, so next season’s plan does not count it twice.

Which ERP reports should you check every week?

A short weekly checklist is enough to run the season if the data is entered daily. Use this list as a starting point:

• Pending dealer orders by article, colour and size.
• Material shortage list from the BOM, with purchase orders due.
• Line-wise output, rejections and wastage.
• Job-work balance by job worker, with ageing of open challans.
• Finished stock by article and size, including broken size sets.
• Dispatches with invoice, e-invoice and e-way bill status.
• Dealer outstanding and collections due this week.
• Stock ageing and season sales against plan.

How DVM Techno Can Help

DVM Techno builds ERP software for manufacturers, with our team in Gurgaon and a branch in Kasni, in the same Jhajjar district as Bahadurgarh. Our footwear ERP for Bahadurgarh units covers article-size-colour stock, BOMs, job work, barcode packing and dealer dispatch. If your process needs something different, our custom software development team can build it. Call or WhatsApp +91-8448523313.

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