Ten calls a day, each one a walk to the shop floor
A buyer rings to ask if the flanges will ship on Friday. The office checks the MRP, which says the job is released. That does not help, so someone walks out to find the traveller. It is at the lathe, second operation done, waiting to go to the miller. Someone asks the setter when it will be on. The answer goes back to the buyer.
Ten minutes, for one call. Some customers call every day. Some buyers have been told to chase every open order line weekly as company policy.
Why buyers keep phoning
Buyers chase because they have been burned before, and because they have their own production schedules and managers asking them. They do not really want to phone. They want to know. If the answer is not available anywhere else, the phone is the only route.
- Job progress lives on paper travellers on the shop floor.
- The MRP shows released or complete, not which operation a job is at.
- Parts at outside processors are invisible in the system.
- Nobody tells the customer about a delay until they ask.
- Different people give different answers to the same buyer.
The cost of the chasing
Office and supervisor time that adds nothing to the parts. Interruptions to setters. Answers that are guesses, which later turn out to be wrong and damage trust. And the worst case: a delay the buyer finds out about on the due date, when they could have planned around it if told a week earlier.
The order status view we build
- Each operation on the traveller is scanned when it starts and finishes, on a tablet or with a barcode reader at the cell. Outside processing dispatch and return are recorded too.
- Each order line gets a plain stage the customer understands: material ordered, in machining, at finishing, inspection, ready to ship, dispatched.
- Customers log in to a simple page showing their open order lines, the stage, and the dispatch date you have confirmed. Nothing internal, such as machine names, notes or costs, is shown.
- When a job's planned finish moves past its confirmed date, your team is alerted and decides what to tell the customer. The page updates when you confirm a new date.
- Dispatch triggers an email with the delivery note, the carrier's tracking reference and the C of C.
- Buyers who prefer email can receive a weekly status of all their open lines instead of logging in.
| Internal event | What the customer sees |
|---|---|
| Material booked in | Material received |
| Operation scans | In machining |
| Sent to anodiser | At finishing |
| Final inspection passed | Ready to ship |
| Delivery note printed | Dispatched, with tracking |
You stay in control of the dates customers see. The system warns you; you decide what to say.
What changes for the office
Most status questions answer themselves. The calls that do come in are about real problems, and whoever picks up the phone can see the same view the customer can. Delays are told to customers before they find out, which is usually the difference between an irritated buyer and an understanding one.
Scans at each operation also give you something you did not have before: how long jobs wait between operations. That queue time is often where lead time really goes, and it is hard to see from the office.
Do you recognise this?
- Buyers ring daily for order updates.
- Answering a call means walking the shop floor.
- Customers learn about delays on the due date.
- Your MRP only shows released or complete.
- Different staff give different answers.