Lead time begins with the first receipt of a customer order and ends with customer receipt of the product or service. Everything in between is the lead time.
The scope of the lead time can vary for the purposes of analysis.
For example, the extreme might be from the point of the ore being in the ground to the customer selecting a vehicle at the dealership.
Another lead time study could be on any process within that larger extreme.
This brings up an important point. The "customer" can be external or internal to an organization. The next person or process down the assembly line is the "customer" for the preceding process.
Talk about who the customer is for the study area.
Definition:
Total time required to complete one unit of a product or service.
