Count the wait before the order is placed.
Supplier lead time starts after several internal decisions may already have happened. A useful purchasing review keeps those periods separate.
Reconstruct a small set of recent purchases.
Use the request, approval, purchase order and receipt information already available. For each purchase, establish when the need became clear, when a complete request reached purchasing, when it was approved and when the supplier confirmed the order.
Do not fill a missing timestamp with an estimate presented as fact. Mark it as unknown and ask the person who handled that part of the purchase. The absence of a record may itself explain why people have different accounts of the delay.
Distinguish the causes.
- Incomplete request
- Purchasing is waiting for a specification, quantity or other information needed to place the order.
- Approval queue
- The request is ready, but the person authorized to approve it has not acted or a substitute has not been defined.
- Supplier commitment
- The order has been placed, but the delivery date, quantity or other condition still needs confirmation.
- Receipt and release
- The goods have arrived but are not yet available for the operation that needs them.
Change the part of the route that explains the delay.
A supplier follow-up list will not fix an approval that waits for a weekly meeting. An additional approver will not resolve an incomplete specification. Choose a change that addresses the observed cause, then follow another purchase through the revised route.
Keep the check simple enough that purchasing and the requesting department can maintain it together.