How to set up lead times with Odoo and make deliveries on time
Manage your lead times for Products, Purchase, Manufacturing and Sales
Why do you need lead times
A proper schedule is an important part of
Odoo helps you plan and coordinate various processes within your business. You can schedule dates to control
Lead times are a security measure to ensure you don't miss a deadline. You define a number of days that you think are enough to finish a process. Each process can have a different number of lead days.
Odoo calculates the lead times in each process (manufacturing, purchase or shipping) and gives you a date. That date is called a Commitment Date - this is the day you can say to your customer they'll get their products.
With Odoo you can schedule with accuracy automatically. You can give your customers an accurate estimation of when they’ll receive their products with lead times. The dates take into account lead times from your suppliers, manufacturing, and delivery.
You only have to set up lead times once to properly plan deliveries.
How are lead times calculated?
Below is a table that summarises how lead times are calculated.
Odoo sets as default the date you are creating a sales order or other orders. The lead is the number of days you choose for each process.
We have a more detailed explanation of how lead times work and how to set them up. But first, you have to check if you have the Dates on Sales Order module. If not, go to Apps and install it.
Sales
When you create a new order, there’s an Other Information tab on the form. Commitment Date is the date that you tell the customer they’ll receive your products.
This field is automatically set based on whether you have lead times defined or not.
If you don’t have any lead time, the Commitment Date is set on the same day that you create the quotation.
Requested Date is the date your customer asked to have the product delivered.
Commitment Date is the day you promised your customer will receive the product.
Effective Date is the date you confirm the Delivery Order.
If you have lead time defined, the date will be calculated based on the days you have set. So, if you have a customer lead time of 10 days, the commitment date will change from today's date to 10 days from now.
To set a Customer Lead time you have to go to the product form. This lead time will be added to the Commitment Date.
Go to a product’s form to insert lead times for manufacture and to deliver it. In the Inventory tab, you’ll see these settings on your left.
To edit, just click on the fields and type the desired number. Save your changes.
Sales Orders
When you create a new sales order, the Commitment Date adds the lead days for the customer you previously defined to the creation date.
So, let’s say today is April 20th. Product A has 10 days for Customer Lead Time. You create today a sales order for product A. Now, product’s A Commitment Date is automatically set to the 30th of April.
What if you have products A and B, with different lead times, to deliver at the same time?
In that case, first, you have to go to the Other Information tab on the sales order. Select the Shipping Policy field and choose "Deliver all products at once" option.
Add A and B to the product list. A has 10 lead days and B has 7 lead days.
Check the Commitment Date. It’s set according to the product that has more lead time. In our case, product A.
Odoo calculates the Commitment Date taking into account the product with the most lead days. This will assure that all your products will be delivered at the same time.
Following the above example, both A and B will be delivered on the 30th.
And if I need to deliver them one by one?
If you want to deliver the products as soon as they’re ready, the Commitment Date will be calculated according to the product that has the least lead days.
The Shipping Policy needs to be set to “Deliver each product when available option” to deliver A and B one by one.
Because B has the least lead days (7) and will be the first to be delivered, the Commitment Date is calculated according to product B.
So instead of the 30th of April, it’ll be the 27th on the Commitment Date.
Be aware that if you change the lead times later, it’ll not update the order. You’ll have to delete the order line and insert it again. This happens when duplicating the order as well.
Inventory
In the Inventory app, go to the Settings page. Locate Security Lead Time for Sales and Security Lead Time for Purchase. Tick the boxes and insert the number of lead days in each option. Don’t forget to save.
These security times will be visible in the Inventory app to process the shipment. Under the Scheduled Date item, the date calculated is the Commitment date minus the security lead time.
For example, you set the Security Lead Time for Sales to seven days. This will remove seven days from the Commitment Date - the order scheduled to be delivered on the 20th starts being processed on the 13th.
Note that these settings are applied to the company. If you’re working in multi-company mode, it won’t be applied to them all.
Purchase
If you’re buying a product from a supplier, you can define lead time for that as well.
In the product’s form, click on the Purchase tab. Select the vendor and a window will open.
On the Delivery Lead Time, insert the number of days it takes to receive the goods.
When you make a purchase order, the lead days will be added to the day you make the order. So, if you have 15 lead days to receive product C and make the purchase order on the 10th for April, the Scheduled Date on the order form will be the 25th.
Manufacturing
The lead time here works with your calendar. If you don’t produce anything on the weekends, only weekdays will be counted.
In the
When a sales order is created, a manufacturing order will be too. On the Deadline Start of the order, the date will be a few days before the Commitment date. In other words, the lead days will be counted backward from the commitment date.
Imagine you have a commitment date for May 10th. By choosing 12 days of lead time for manufacture, the start date of the order will be April 29th.
If you don't work on weekends, the start date will be the 24th.
Lead time can be set for all your products. In the Settings page of the Manufacturing app, locate Security Lead Time.
Tick the box and choose how many days you want. This ensures all your products will start to be produced before the commitment date.
You can have the Security Lead Time and Manufacturing Lead Time active at the same time. The security lead will be added to the lead time you already have on each product. If they don’t have one, only the security lead time will be taken into account.
We suggest that if you have products that take some time to produce, you may want to add a customer lead time as well. If you have a sales order for a product that has manufacturing lead time, you have to set a Customer lead time as well.
Without Customer Lead Time, the Commitment Date is the day you are creating the order. You can't promise to deliver a product today if it takes 12 days to produce.
For example, you create a sales order for product C on the 21st of April. Without a customer lead time, Odoo automatically sets the Commitment Date for the same day.
This will also trigger a manufacturing order. C has a manufacturing lead time of 12 days. In the manufacturing order, the Deadline Start is set for the 9th.
You couldn’t have started production 12 days ago as you only made the order today. And you can’t deliver it because it needs to be manufactured first.
Because of this, you have to define a Customer Lead Time to prevent this error.
