Order Cycle Time

Elapsed time from customer order receipt to delivery.

Cycle time is what customers actually experience, and reducing it usually reduces inventory too.

Order received Monday 09:00, delivered Thursday 15:00 = 3.25 days.

Break it into order processing, pick and pack, dwell and transit. The bottleneck is rarely where people assume.

Remove approval and release delays, cut dock dwell, and align cut-off times with carrier schedules.

Reporting only the average and ignoring the long tail that generates most complaints.