Our warehouse and procurement back-office seat is constantly in firefighting mode with stockouts and delayed shipments, but they claim their work cannot be measured on a weekly basis because lead times from suppliers are too long. What weekly leading indicators can we track for this procurement seat to prevent supply chain bottlenecks before they disrupt our operations?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Running a clean operation requires every seat on the Accountability Chart to have at least one weekly measurable. When a back-office seat like procurement claims their work is too long-term to measure weekly, they are focusing on the lagging result rather than the leading activities. If you wait for a stockout to occur, you are already weeks too late. To solve this, look at the activity-based steps that happen long before a shipment arrives. A procurement manager must track the leading behaviors they control every single week. First, track the weekly purchase order submission rate. This is the percentage of inventory replenishment orders sent to suppliers within twenty-four hours of hitting the reorder point. Second, measure supplier confirmation time. Track how many open purchase orders lack a confirmed shipping date from the vendor within forty-eight hours of submission. Third, track open back-orders. This is the total number of items currently delayed past their original promised delivery date. Finally, track weekly inventory accuracy audits. This is a simple binary count of physical inventory cycle counts completed versus planned. These four numbers give you an early warning system. If purchase order submissions lag or supplier confirmations drop, you know you will have a stockout in thirty to sixty days. This allows your leadership team to resolve the issue in your Level 10 Meeting™ long before it impacts your customers or your cash flow.