Across the Table: On-time Shipping
Our IT Manager at Fisher Hamilton [FHI] was chairing a meeting and bragged about our on-time shipping record. I told him our on-time record was horrible. He replied we were on time 95% of the time. I asked, “You know how we measure that, right?” He quickly changed the topic.
You see, at Hamilton, we measured against the last date we said it would ship, even if we had changed the date eight times [with or without your approval]. And we still gave ourselves +/- one week, and we only had to ship something, not everything was ordered.
Later, another cabinet company did not count a shipment as late if the cabinet hardware was late getting to us. We’d ship the cabinets, expecting the dealer to install the hardware. I argued we were late if the order did not ship complete. We had “lively discussions” about this amongst senior staff. One day our Production Manager changed his mind and agreed with me. The rest thought he had gone over to the dark side. He explained his house contractor wanted to get paid, but Greg wasn’t paying him until the last couple of subcontractors were done. Similarly, our customers expect us to manage our vendors so we could ship on time and complete.
Well, with sales and production in agreement, we discussed how to make this happen. We explained to the staff the new expectations and the changes in how we did our jobs. We kept weekly records, fixing procedures as problems arose.
We got to where we were shipping 97.5% on time, for several years. Here’s how we measured it:
The ship date was as agreed on with you. Not when we said it would be, but to what we both agreed.
The date would never change unless you requested a change and we could meet it. [No other customer would get shoved aside.] Otherwise, we’d negotiate a new date.
When ship day came, and everything was on the truck except we drop and crack the last epoxy sink? Well, the truck left on time, and we air-freighted a new sink to be installed with everything else, but the entire shipment was counted late because it wasn’t complete.
We included shortage-and-breakage shipments [but were now never short], based on when they were needed on the job site. If needed next week, that is what we promised and included in our on-time measurement.
When late is that 2.5% of the time? It was usually because one of our many quick-ship items shipped a day later than the promised five days.
Finally, for qualified requests, we would send our weekly data for customers to verify.
I’m curious, how do you approve firms to bid on your projects? Do you consider their on-time shipping history, and verify it? Do you disqualify companies from future projects when they ship late? Is on-time shipping important to you and your customers? Do you even track the shipping records of your vendors?
Dave can be reached at dwithee@alum.mit.edu or 920-737-8477.
All opinions expressed in Across The Table with Dave Withee are exclusive to the author and are not reflective of Lab Design News.