Ship dates and lead times
Ship dates are the backbone of scheduling. Get these wrong and every downstream date is wrong.
Dates live on line items, not orders
Section titled “Dates live on line items, not orders”One order can contain items promised for different days — a quick item and a slow one bought together. So the ship date belongs to the line item.
Where you see a single date on an order, it is the latest of its line items: the date the whole order can finally go out.
How the date is calculated
Section titled “How the date is calculated”When a line item is created, its ship date is derived:
ship date = order date + the product's lead time (days)Custom items, and items with no linked product, are left blank deliberately — there is no lead time to work from, so a person decides.
The build deadline is earlier than the ship date
Section titled “The build deadline is earlier than the ship date”Work must finish before the item ships, by the product’s shipping time:
build deadline = ship date − the product's shipping time (days)That deadline is what production plans against.
Changing dates
Section titled “Changing dates”Editing a line item’s date changes only that item. If an item slips past its original date, the order is flagged as delayed and the reason is recorded.