By boosting your capacity planning.

All other factors being equal, a manufacturer who delivers on time will be preferred over other suppliers.

But if one of your customers called you right now with an order, could you give them a reliable delivery date? If you cannot give a confident ‘yes’ in answer to that question, then you need to improve your capacity planning.

Quality planning results in accurate due dates. Accurate due dates make your customers happy. And that makes you their preferred supplier.

Here are some tips to improve your capacity planning.

Plan in daily buckets

Orders typically have a lead time of at least a month. During that period, a number of disruptions can derail your carefully-laid plans. Planning at the daily level allows you to anticipate and deal with any issues that arise.

Do not plan in weekly buckets. Even if your customers accept a ‘due week’ rather than a ‘due day’, planning this way increases the risk of late deliveries. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that all orders will be produced on the first day of the week – a completely unrealistic assumption.

Transparency

How certain are you that the due date you are about to quote is accurate? If you’re lacking certainty, then you’re lacking transparency. You need the ability to see what is happening throughout your supply chain. Look for capacity planning tools that provide:

• Visibility into your production processes. This is crucial for detecting anomalies. If they’re not detected, they will affect your expected production times
• Automatic alerts that spotlight areas requiring attention, such as late orders and data inputs that are obviously incorrect
• Immediate insight into whether an order might be late and why.

These are only two of the four essential tips on better capacity planning. To find out more on how you can become the preferred supplier to your customers, download the management briefing.