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Managing Customer Lead Time

Chao, Raul O., Gol...

Technical Note

Managing Customer Lead Time

Chao, Raul O.; Goldberg, Rebecca

OM-1660 | Published September 3, 2025 | 4 pages. Technical Note

Collection: Darden School of Business

Product Details

This technical note focuses on managing customer lead time, including presenting a basic definition of throughput time and then working in detail through two examples of how to calculate throughput time. This note forms one module in our collection of introductory operations management topics, and all are appropriate for an advanced undergraduate- or graduate-level introductory course on operations management. The complete list of the materials in this collection is available in the teaching materials included with this technical note.

1. Discuss the relationships between throughput rate, throughput time, cycle time, lead time, and inventory. 2. Present several examples of calculating throughput rate using Little's Law. 3. Explore the differences in perspective between cycle time (process perspective) and throughput time (customer perspective).