If you’re someone who has heard about the problems with the supply chain, you’ve also probably heard of lead times, as this can involve the packaging and material along with machinery times. If you’re looking to make a large machinery or various materials, but don’t want to wait for them for a few months, you can get this now, rather than down the road. It’s important to understand that due to the supply chain issues, it’s important that you place the orders early. You might need six months before it’s received in a timely fashion. 

If you wait to purchase something closer to the date, this can cause problems with it getting there, and tons of headaches. This is something that you should definitely ensure, especially if you want something to arrive as needed. If you’re curious about the materials and equipment, you should make the order well in advance. You may wonder why the lead times are so long though, and we’ll go over the issue with lead times currently, and what you can do. 

Why they’re so long 

This is something that is happening more often because of what’s going on in the world. Lead times of course, are the time it takes for something to arrive after placing orders. They’re essential because if you don’t consider these, it’ll cause the materials and machinery to not be there in time. It’s not super uncommon for buyers to ask about orders, and oftentimes, when you’ve got a lead time for product packaging, you can get this anywhere from a couple of weeks to up to half a year out. 

In most situations, letting the buyers know about this will help, as they can decide whether or not they can purchase something, based on what the lead times say. If you wait a few weeks before getting the items, then they may have to wait even longer. If you don’t do it right away, you may upset the customers too, since they’ll ask just why they can’t get something super quick. 

The extensive amount of lead times are becoming more common, and if you want to make sure that you don’t have that conversation, it’s important to early on. However, if the buyer understands that, they’ll also talk about the frustration of this, and you may want to expedite this, but let’s face it, that’s nearly impossible for most of the people. 

That is why if you don’t want to be in the position where you’ve got angry customers, making purchases a few weeks, or even months beforehand ensures everything arrives in a timely manner. 

The current lead times 

It depends basically on the material, and the current climate. The lead time for instance on packaging may be up to four weeks, but for some machinery and other packaging, it can be up to six months, and this is something that you’ll want to look at based on each case-by-case basis. The elements that impact this are something that you should be mindful of. Black swan events, disruptions to the supply chain, war, material shortage, and health crisis can all affect it. 

It can also be because of force majeure which basically liberates the distributor and the manufacturer in the event a black swan event. In this case, they may not get to customer’s orders until something is over. The best thing to do in that case is order ahead of time, order beforehand, and then stay abreast of the recent changes, especially if you are worried about how lead times will impact repute too. 

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