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Material Sourcing

⚪ Planned (Phase 3) After a BOM structure exists, the next step is assigning real materials to each line. This stays mostly human-led at first — sourcing decisions involve relationships, quality, and pricing context that the AI doesn’t have. Brain’s role is to suggest and surface gaps, not to decide.

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What Brain does

Brain can suggest, from the material library:
  • Similar materials previously used
  • Existing suppliers for matching material types
  • Trims used on similar styles
  • Material options that fit the BOM specification
  • Missing material records that need to be created
  • Supplier records that may need to be created

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What humans decide

The merchandiser or sourcing team owns:
  • Which specific fabric to use
  • Which supplier to contact
  • Whether to create a new material record
  • Whether to create a new supplier record
  • Which price applies
  • Which MOQ applies

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Trigger

After the true cost draft, Brain prompts:
“The BOM is ready, but 5 material lines are not assigned. Would you like me to suggest matching materials from the library?”
If accepted, Brain shows ranked matches for each unassigned line.

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Matching logic

Brain ranks material library candidates by:
  • Material type
  • Composition
  • Construction
  • Weight
  • Color
  • Finish
  • Supplier
  • Previous client usage
  • Price range
  • MOQ
  • Lead time

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Output

For each BOM line, Brain shows a ranked list of candidates with the relevant attributes side by side. The merchandiser selects, edits, or rejects each suggestion and creates new material records when needed.

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Approval gate

Material assignments are written to the BOM via the normal CutMake interface. There’s no separate approval step here — the assignment IS the approval.