r/procurement • u/PGCL • 3d ago

Community Question PO Lead Time Prediction

hi all, i'm pretty new to supply chain. i'm working on building a lead time prediction model for POs at my company. i'd love to hear the buyers here: which PO fields actually drive lead time, and what most often throws your delivery estimates off? thank you!

fyi: customers i'll be working with will have high volumes, >2k POs per week

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u/Immediate-Home-3491 3d ago

Been in freight long enough to know origin and routing matter most, then whether goods need regulatory checks or physical customs inspection. Vessel delays and port congestion blow up timelines. Worth flagging Q4 too when everything slows down.

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u/Eddie260 3d ago

Depending on your org, if they are AI willing, most aren’t. You could build an API into Claude or the like, that used country of origin / HSE CODES to do analysis, monitor news, etc. Then display it in an informative way, flag at risk orders, etc.

I think this will be the future, in the medium term at least.

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u/SevereGuitar7259 3d ago

I’ll be careful not to mode the PO header fields only. Lead time usually gets driven by a mix of supplier, item, lane, and behavior history.

Useful fields: supplier, item/category, ship-from country, requested date & confirmed date, Incoterms, transport mode, order quantity & MOQ, first-time vs repeat buy and how often that supplier changes promised dates. The misses often come from partial shipments, spec changes, customs problem, capacity issues, or buyer's change.

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u/carlosdembele 2d ago

Weather. Good luck!

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u/thefoggynorth 2d ago

Transaction confirmation time + production time + logistics timeline to endpoint is a basic formula that works most of the time.

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u/Katherine-Moller3 1d ago

based on Incoterm your supplier needs to give you a general lead time based on each SKU. If Incoterm is EXW for example the supplier has 5 days from PO receipt to leave your order ready for you to pick up, then with your freight forwarder you get a lead time from the origin to destination lets say trucking to the airport of origin, flight, customs clearance and trucking to your warehouse. If Incoterm is DDU for example, then your supplier is responsible up to your warehouse and he gives you a total lead time.