Managing Communication of Purchased Part Lead Times
Kent Jacobson, a.k.a. "Mr. Success"

If you are a supply chain person, you realize the perpetual swirl surrounding your attempts in communicating purchase part lead times to interested personnel. In my estimation there are two key points you need to assure are understood before attempting anymore communication.

Key point number one:  The manufacturing planning system must contain understandable, credible and maintainable lead times that include dock delivery dates. Through your supply chain organization, get the supplier to commit realistic lead time delivery dates to you in writing.  After this is established, make sure the date and lead times are loaded into the appropriate planning system for your company.  Your supply chain personnel need to be relentless in managing these dates to assure all the other program and manufacturing schedules, testing faculties, customer interfaces and milestones are accurate.  It is imperative the dates are managed and changes are communicated immediately.  Depending where you are positioned in the company, the process to communicate and establish credible dates must be detailed, documented and adhered to.

Key point number two:  Make sure the message is clear; Supply Chain manages the dates in the manufacturing planning system, don't plan on the dates getting pulled in, rather manage and plan on the parts being received as specified in the planning system on time. Any other system, manual or intuitive will only disrupt and compromise any credibility the system has established. This message must be communicated to all support organizations, especially customer service and sales personnel, as these organizations will always respond to customer requests for upside and shorter lead times. Every customer is concerned about the lead time; more often than not the people who are committing your company to a delivery date are not fully informed or understand the impact of providing a compromised (unachievable) delivery date. The lead time message regarding managing lead times, shall come from senior supply chain management, at the same time being supported throughout the company by senior manufacturing personnel and understood by management. What must be clear and consistent is the basic message; the lead times in the system are accurate, supply chain will continually work to better the dates, do not plan on a different date until the manufacturing planning system date changes.  The part of the message that often gets ignored is when personnel fail to check the planning system date first, and jump right into the "fly-by" questions on upside requests.  Try to contain the fly-by, frequent communication and system integrity will help minimize this practice.  If not, establish a single point of contact that all requests must flow through, the more senior a person the better.

The organizational discipline associated with lead times shall be:
*rely on the system dates
*assure supply chain manages and communicates dates and changes
*do not allow organizations to regularly request pull-in dates
*communicate all the manufacturing planning dates regularly
*keep sales and customer service informed
*train the staff on using the manufacturing planning system

As everyone is aware, two way communications are critical in all areas of product manufacture, service and personal interaction.

Accurate and disciplined communication is imperative to the high performance supply chain and manufacturing organizations. Through out the whole delivery process, lead time management, consistent communication and discipline to plan against the system dates (good or bad) is required. The challenges are going to be when a *big $$* sale is presented to management and the *superman mentality* takes over through out all disciplines. Everyone is transformed (in their mind) into a procurement specialist and knows how to help out the true professionals in the organization. Don't support this superman mentality, you must remind everyone of their responsibilities and rely on the accuracy of the planning system to guide decisions so stick to the processes you have put in place. I wish you all success.