“We’re missing ship dates, and overtime isn’t fixing it.”
On-time delivery is sliding, expediting is constant, and more hours only move the problem.
What you’re facing
Your on-time delivery number is drifting down. Customers are calling for status. Every morning starts with a hot list, and the hot list changes by lunch. You’ve added Saturdays and overtime, and for a few weeks it helped — then the late orders came back.
Everyone has a theory. Sales says the schedule is wrong. Scheduling says production can’t hit a plan. Production says material shows up late and the machines are down. Each theory is partly right, which is exactly why nothing gets fixed.
What this is costing you
- •Premium freight to recover late orders — often invisible because it is buried in logistics spend
- •Overtime premiums and a tired workforce that makes more mistakes
- •Expediting that breaks the schedule for every order that was on time
- •Customer scorecards that put future business at risk
- •Inventory building up in the wrong places while the right orders wait
The questions you’re probably asking
Isn’t this just a capacity problem?
Sometimes, but rarely plant-wide. Late deliveries usually trace to one constrained resource, a flow problem that inflates lead time, or a schedule that changes faster than the floor can react. Adding capacity everywhere is expensive; adding it at the real constraint is not.
Our OEE looks fine. How can capacity be the issue?
A plant-wide average OEE hides the one asset that actually paces output. OEE only matters at the constraint — a non-constraint running at 90% does not ship one extra order.
How fast can this improve?
Once the real constraint and the dominant cause are identified, focused Kaizen work at that point often moves on-time delivery within weeks. Structural fixes such as leveling and WIP control take longer, but they keep the gain.
What to do first
- 1Stop adding blanket overtime until you know where the hours actually help.
- 2Pull the last 60–90 days of late orders and tag each one with where it was waiting when it went late.
- 3Walk the floor and look for the resource with the biggest pile of work in front of it — that is your first constraint candidate.
- 4Measure how often the schedule changes inside the week. If it changes daily, the floor cannot execute it.
What best practice says
Lean and the Theory of Constraints agree on one thing: the output of the whole system is set by its constraint. Improve the constraint first, subordinate everything else to it, and control work-in-process so lead time stays short and predictable.
The five causes we check are constraint capacity (availability, changeovers, speed losses), flow and WIP (batch-and-queue, long queues), schedule stability (frozen windows, leveling), quality losses at or after the constraint, and material availability. Most plants have two of the five driving the majority of late orders.
Method, sized to scope
Five-cause delivery diagnosis, then a Kaizen at the real constraint — or a DMAIC project when variation (scrap, cycle time, changeover) is the driver.
The Exceleor Path, applied to your situation
Every engagement across the Exceleor family follows the same eight stages: Understand, Execute, Sustain. About the Exceleor Path
1. Discovery
In your situation: We trace your late orders back to where they were waiting and separate the five causes with data, not opinion.
2. Define the engagement path
In your situation: We rank the causes by late orders explained and pick the right method for each — A3, Kaizen, or DMAIC.
3. Training
In your situation: Supervisors and schedulers learn constraint thinking, WIP limits and how to protect a frozen schedule window.
4. Implement & engage
In your situation: We run the improvement at the constraint: changeover reduction, buffer management, line balance, or quality containment.
5. Verify
In your situation: We verify on-time delivery, lead time and WIP against the baseline — weekly, not anecdotally.
6. Validate
In your situation: We confirm the gain holds through a full demand cycle, including a peak.
7. Transfer ownership
In your situation: Your team owns the constraint board, the WIP rules and the daily delivery review.
8. Sustain & grow
In your situation: We identify the next constraint — because once you fix one, it moves.
What you’ll have at the end
- A clear, data-backed answer to “why are we late?”
- An improved and protected constraint
- Shorter, more predictable lead times
- Less premium freight and less overtime
- A daily delivery review your team runs without us
Why QMSLean
We start from the business symptom, not a favorite tool. The method — A3, Kaizen or DMAIC — is chosen to fit the size of the problem.
We work on the floor and in the office with your people, and we build the sustain system before we leave, so the gain is still there after we are gone.
And when the root of the problem sits outside Lean, the Exceleor family of companies covers quality systems, supplier quality, EHS and leadership.
Related services
Tell us what’s going on.
Request a Situation Review. A Lean practitioner will reply by email with how we would approach your version of this problem.