Market Intelligence: Leadtime Trends

Buyers need to know how long it will take to receive an MPN once ordered and that is measured in weeks of lead time. Being able to understand an appropriate range of lead times within a subset of the Commodities, Suppliers, etc. helps inform buyer decision-making.

Viewing lead time trends allows buyers to determine if a given part is becoming easier or more difficult to source. Buyers want to stock up when lead times are extending. Buyers also want to know if they need to start sourcing alternate manufacturers or parts. Lead time trend awareness informs this decision framework.

Users can navigate Leadtime Trends in a variety of ways to get to the insights they are looking for:

1. The controls dropdown allows the user to pick a specific sub-commodity or manufacturer and the rest of the interface is filtered to only that type of information.
   1. These controls supersede the usual platform-wise scope filters at the top of the interface which should not be used with this feature.
2. A full or partial part number can be entered to look at only specific parts for lead-time trends. For example, the user can look at lead trends for part ABC123 or ABC456. If the user wants to look at all parts in the ABC part family, they can enter ABC and hit search.
   1. The part search is case sensitive to make identical matches, so if your part is loaded into the LevaData Platform as ABC123, and you type in aBc123, you are not going to make an identical match.
   2. Leadtime of MPN Searched will show median weeks of lead time for whatever you have filtered.
3. Users can click into a specific commodity or subcommodity in any part of the interface and it will filter the rest of the results. For example, clicking CABLE_ASSEMBLY filters the rest of the results for further analysis:

Sub Commodity Leadtime Heatmap

Each of the panels can be (1) expanded/maximized and the filter can be reviewed to confirm the data insight. Leadtime Heatmap presents (2) Sub Commodity lead times month-over-month for a multi-year time series. Drilling into specific data for CABLE_ASSEMBLY parts we can see (3) a drastic increase in lead times for the CABLE_ASSEMBLY_PLUGGABLE category of parts during Mid/Late 2021 which was certainly a time period with frequent supply chain disruptions.

When you examine your own lead times, you should be able to identify trends in your data that bear out your historical experience as well as discover lead time trend insights that you were not previously aware of and be able to discern if your core commodities/parts will have upcoming sourcing issues.

View by Manufacturer

View by Manufacturer allows the user to compare lead time metrics for their manufacturers. If some of your main manufacturers are posting very high lead times for the part/commodity/subcommodity in question, then it may be worthwhile to consider sourcing alternate vendors or making further additions to your approved vendor list.

Monthly Lead Time Trends

With Leadtime Trends you can see the rise and fall of lead times for specific subcommodities or manufacturers. From the previous example, we can see the (1) surge in lead time in the second half of 2021 for pluggable cable assemblies. If the user (2) selects one of the elements on the legend, it will be emphasized on the graph while all other trendlines will be minimized, and the rest of the panels on the page will be filtered to just that legend item.

If the user (3) selects the down arrow in the upper right of the panel, they can drill down from sub commodity to manufacturer and see specifically which manufacturers are most impacted by these leadtime trend changes.

In this example data, we can determine that the massive increase in weeks of average lead time for late 2021 was attributable almost entirely to this one manufacturer, with other manufacturers maintaining a fairly stable baseline of lead time throughout the period in question.

This kind of analysis will allow you to more quickly become aware of extreme lead time outliers in your vendor pool who are potential candidates for alternative sourcing.

Leadtime Channel Statistics

This chart will display lead time statistics for the data actively filtered across the time series.

The purpose of this chart is to allow comparison between the relative lead times of the item(s) in question over the following breakpoints:

• minimal lead times (10th Percentile - Green)
• median lead times (50th Percentile - Blue)
• maximal lead times (90th Percentile - Red)

This helps to baseline acceptable ranges for lead times within specific criteria in order to bolster future sourcing plans. This enables users to plan out appropriate timeframes to guarantee supply. When lead time trends are increasing to unacceptable levels, having this insight informs the strategic decision to seek alternate sourcing.

Resetting Leadtime Trends

Users can refresh their browser to reset the screen to baseline values and remove all existing report filters.

Learn More

If you would like to see this feature demonstrated, please check out our video tutorial:

• Market Intelligence: Leadtime Trends (Video)