Accurate lead times enable businesses to fulfill orders promptly, meeting or even exceeding customer expectations. Customer satisfaction is one of the key aspects of running a successful business. From the customer's viewpoint, having a clear-cut idea of when the goods will be delivered and receiving the goods on the promised dates helps to increase the trust and reliability of the customer towards the company. With Odoo we can manage all these activities from a single platform and work efficiently to take the company to greater heights.
Lead Time in Odoo 17
Lead time in Odoo 17 is the amount of time that elapses between a process's beginning and end. Businesses involved in manufacturing, supply chain management, and project management assess lead times at the beginning, during, and end of the process. Odoo 17 offers a variety of lead times, including customer lead times, vendor lead times, manufacturing lead times, and security lead times for sales, purchase, and manufacturing. In this blog, We'll go into great detail about the lead times in Odoo 17.
So the different lead times available in Odoo 17 are:
* Customer Lead Time: Customer lead time is the number of days to deliver a product to a customer. Customer lead time helps us to schedule the delivery date or delivery time precisely. Customer lead time for a product can be given at the product level. In the inventory tab of the product, we have the option to add customer lead time.
* Security Lead Time for sales: Security lead time for sales in Odoo helps to add extra days to the expected delivery date. This works on the delay that may occur on delivery of the product and ensures the customer receives their item on time; that is, when we use the delivery lead time feature, the product will be delivered to the customer earlier than the expected delivery date. This is the general security lead time that will be applied to all of the products. For that, navigate to Inventory --> Configuration --> Settings. Under Advanced Scheduling we have the option ‘Security Lead Time for Sales’. When we enable that, a field will be visible to enter the number of days to move forward the expected delivery date.
* Delivery lead time: Also known as vendor lead time or purchase lead time is the number of days taken from the vendor when we place an order to when those items arrive in our stock. Vendor lead time for a product can be given under the purchase tab of the product.
* Security Lead Time for Purchase: Security Lead Time for Purchase in Odoo 17 is an option to add extra days to the expected arrival date to cope with any unexpected vendor delays that might occur. So the deadline for the receipt will be moved ahead by that many days. This is the general security lead time that will be applied to all of the products. For that, navigate to Inventory --> Configuration --> Settings. Under Advanced Scheduling, we have the option of Security Lead Time for Purchase. When we enable that, a field will be visible to enter the number of days by which we can move ahead the deadline for the receipt.
* Manufacturing Lead Time: Manufacturing lead time is the number of days it takes to produce the product from the raw materials. Manufacturing lead time can be given under the Miscellaneous tab of the Bills of Materials of a product.
* Security Lead Time for Manufacturing: Security lead time in manufacturing schedules the manufacturing order earlier by the specified amount of days to avoid any potential delays that might occur. This is the general security lead time that will be applied to all of the production. For that, navigate to Manufacturing --> Configuration --> Settings, and under Planning, we have the option ‘Security Lead Time’ which when enabled, a field appears to add the number of days to schedule manufacturing orders earlier to avoid delays.
To gain a deeper understanding of the lead times in Odoo 17, we can look into an illustrative example.
Let's say we run a company for office furniture called ABC company, where we have several products that are readily available. We also take customization orders from the customers and build the product for the customers according to their needs. Now we have received an order from the customer ‘Azure Interior’ for a customizable desk on May 4th. Since we do not have the product readily available in our stock, we have to manufacture the product, and the bills of materials of the product include wood and steel. The raw material wood is available in our stock, and the raw material steel needs to be purchased. We are planning to buy the steel from one of our trusted vendors, Wood Corner. For manufacturing the product, we will need 3 days, so here the manufacturing lead time can be given as three days. Since Azure Interior is one of our loyal customers, we have to make sure that the order is delivered on time without any delay. So we can give the security lead time for manufacturing as 2 days so that the manufacturing process will be scheduled 2 days earlier.
In order to start the production, first we will purchase the raw material steel from the vendor, and it takes 4 days for the vendor to deliver the product: that is purchase lead time for that product from that vendor is 4 days. To avoid any delay in receiving the product from the vendor, we can add security days for purchase as 2 days so that the deadline for receipt from the vendor will be moved ahead by that many days. The customer lead time of the product is given as 16 days.
Since the order was placed on 4th May, the order is scheduled to be delivered to the customer on 20th May. The security lead time for sales is given as 3 days and the scheduled date for the delivery will be 3 days earlier and will be 17th May. We have given the security lead time for manufacturing as 2 days and the manufacturing lead time as 3 days, so the last date to begin the manufacturing of the product is 12th May. To begin the manufacturing process, the raw material has to be received, and by taking into account the vendor lead time and the security lead time for purchase which is 4 days and 2 days respectively, the last date to confirm the purchase order is 6th May.
Thus, we can effectively ensure customer satisfaction by precisely accounting for all lead times when controlling the delivery procedures. Customer satisfaction is one of the key aspects of running a successful business. Managing all the lead times is much easier in Odoo 17 where it can be done from a single platform and thus efficiently maintaining all the manufacturing, reception, and delivery processes.
To read more about How to Use Security Lead Time in Odoo 17 to Avoid Delays, refer to our blog How to Use Security Lead Time in Odoo 17 to Avoid Delays.