You are missing what you promised customers
On-time delivery is the number your customers judge you on.
"We keep missing delivery dates and customers are noticing."
A plant that misses dates is rarely a plant that is not trying. It is usually a plant whose planning cannot see far enough ahead, or across enough sites, to promise a date it can keep.
So the work starts underneath the symptom: what the schedule is built from, what the inventory position actually is, and which suppliers are quietly setting your lead time for you.
On one assignment, at Positronic Amphenol, one production planning and inventory control system went in across North America, Europe and Asia. On-time delivery went from under 40 percent to over 98 percent.
Questions about this one
- What moves first?
- Usually the schedule and the material that feeds it. On-time delivery is normally the first number to move because it sits on top of both.
- Is this a software project?
- Sometimes the planning system has to change. More often the system is fine and nothing is driving it properly.
The other five reasons people call
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The seat is empty
Your plant manager just left
The seat is filled while you find the right permanent person.
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Cash is stuck in stock
Too much cash tied up in inventory
Cash sitting in parts nobody needs this quarter.
-
The plant is behind
Your plant is falling behind
Safety, quality and efficiency, looked at together.
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The schedule slips
Your schedule keeps slipping
A schedule that looks right on Monday and is gone by Wednesday.
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The team will not move
Your team will not execute
Decisions get made where the work is, or they do not get made.
Let's talk about what is going wrong.
A few sentences is enough. What is late, what is stuck, or which seat is empty.