Four to six weeks, whatever the question
Every quote says four to six weeks. It is what the shop has always said. In a quiet month that is generous. In a busy month, when the five axis is booked solid and the anodiser is running slow, it is fiction, and the estimator has no easy way to know which kind of month it is.
The order arrives, gets entered, and the planner looks at it and sighs. It will go out in nine weeks at best, and the customer's buyer has already put the promised date into their own plan.
Why the quoted date and the real date part company
The estimator prices the job and the planner plans it, and the two rarely talk at quote time. The estimator cannot see the machine loading. The planner does not know what is out on quote. And the lead time depends on things outside the shop too: the stockholder for a special grade, the heat treater's queue.
- Lead times are a standard phrase, not a calculation.
- Current machine load is on the planner's whiteboard or in their head.
- Material lead times for less common grades are not checked.
- Outside processing turnaround is assumed, not known.
- Big quotes that might land at once are not considered together.
The cost of a date you cannot keep
Late deliveries on work you only just won, which is a poor start with a new customer. Overtime or subcontracting to claw back dates that were never realistic. Planners constantly reshuffling to protect promises made without them. And sometimes the opposite: work lost because the standard lead time was longer than it needed to be in a quiet month.
The capacity check we build into quoting
- Your machines are grouped by what they can do, for example three axis milling, five axis, turning, sliding head and grinding, with the hours each group has per week.
- Current load for each group comes from your planned jobs, from the MRP or the loading board.
- When the estimator drafts a quote, its operations and hours are added to the relevant groups as a what if, without booking anything.
- Material lead time is taken from your record of each stockholder and grade, and outside processing turnaround from recent returns.
- The tool proposes the earliest realistic dispatch date and shows why: which machine group is the constraint and which week it fits in.
- The estimator can accept it, add margin, or override it. The quoted date is stored, so the planner can see what was promised.
- Large open quotes can be viewed together, so you can see what happens to the shop if several land in the same month.
| Input | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Hours per machine group | The quote's operations and cycle times |
| Current load | Planned jobs in the MRP or loading board |
| Material lead time | Stockholder and grade history |
| Outside processing | Recent turnaround by processor |
| Other open quotes | Quote register, weighted if you choose |
How quoting and planning line up
The date on the quote is based on the shop as it is this week, not as it was the year the phrase was first written. When the shop is quiet, estimators can offer shorter lead times and win work on speed. When it is busy, they can say so honestly or price for overtime. The planner stops inheriting promises they could have told you were impossible.
And when a buyer asks whether you can do it faster, the estimator can see what would have to move to make that happen, rather than guessing.
Are your lead times a habit rather than a calculation?
- Every quote has the same lead time.
- New orders are late before they start.
- Estimators cannot see machine loading.
- Special material lead times catch you out.
- The planner only sees a date once the order is placed.