Orders are delayed
Find the actual bottleneck across material, production, quality, approvals or dispatch.
01 · What is usually happening?
A customer asks where their order is. Sales asks production, production asks stores, stores asks purchase. An hour later you have three different answers.
Orders are usually delayed because something upstream changed without the rest of the business seeing the impact.
The question people usually ask“When will it be ready?”
The more useful question“What is this order waiting for right now, and who is clearing it?”
02 · Common causes
- 01Material unavailable
- 02Supplier delayed
- 03Production behind plan
- 04Machine downtime
- 05Quality hold
- 06Packing incomplete
- 07Transport not confirmed
- 08Approval pending
03 · What to check now0 of 8 checked
04 · What good looks like
- 01Delivery date promised after checking material and capacity.
- 02One open orders list with status and blocker.
- 03Blockers owned and dated.
- 04Customer told about changes before they ask.
- 05Late orders reviewed for the real cause.
05 · Where this connects
This rarely stays in one department
What it can lead to: Lost trust and, often, a delayed payment.
Start from a problem
Work flows left to right, top to bottomKEYMost important for manufacturing
These support every part of the business
Problem
Orders are slipping
Usually connected to
How it spreads
- Order
- Material
- Production
- Quality
- Dispatch
- Customer
What it can lead to: The customer calls before you call them.
lamplamp can check material, production and quality for every open order at once.
08 · lamp
lamp could keep this moving
lamp is not available yet. These are things it is being built to do.
- lamp could check material, production, quality and dispatch for every open order.
- lamp could list orders at risk this week with the reason.
- lamp could draft customer updates for your approval.
Does your business handle this differently?Tell us what we have missed: a cause, a check, or a better way of handling it.
Suggest an addition