Lead time vs Safety Lead Time Using Microsoft Dynamics NAV
If you’re a Microsoft Dynamics NAV user and deal with process flows, you might ask yourself what the difference is between safety lead time and lead time. At first, you would think the word “safety” is self-explanatory, meaning the state of being safe or to protect against. When you think of safety in terms of lead time and compare it with lead time, however, they start to mix.
In NAV, safety lead time is cushion time period for delays in the process. Lead time is a planning time used for the start of process to the end of the process to replenish the item. Both safety lead time and lead time have a date calculation driving the results. Let’s go over this calculation for each:
Table 1 – Lead Time vs. Safety Lead Time date calculations
Another area to take into consideration is the hierarchy of the calculations, when you think of all the places the lead time and safety lead time can be set up. For safety lead time, we have the item card and the SKU card. For the lead time, we have the vendor card, item card, SKU card, and item vendor card. With all of the different places these calculations occur, we need to take into consideration the hierarchy. Below you will find the structure for both lead time and safety lead time:
Table 2 – Lead Time vs Safety Lead Time hierarchy
Knowing the difference of lead time and safety lead time should help you improve your process flow. If you would like to learn more about planning features in Dynamics NAV, contact ArcherPoint.