Order-To-Delivery Issues

In this post, we’re going to review the Order-To-Delivery Issues panel discussion, which was presented by Karen Mongelli (Black & McDonald), Jeff Hartley (LeasePlan), Michael Tanel (Farmbro), Bernie Moorcroft (FCA) and Jeff Fitchett (GM) on February 12, at the AFLA Canada 2020 Fleet Summit..

This session explored the various challenges that OEMs face and discussed how communication between the fleet manager, FMC and OEM can help increase customer satisfaction while addressing these challenges. 

Additionally, it was discussed how some companies or fleet managers assume the American and Canadian markets are identical, when in reality they differ greatly; while our country is geographically much larger than the United States, the size of the population is similar to that of the state of California.

The panel discussion addressed some of the factors that influenced Order-to-Delivery performance during the previous year:

• Global platforms increase delivery times 
• Inventory allocation to Canada: if US market is strong, there are less vehicles allocated to the Canadian market 
• Early build outs by the manufacturers 
• Lower commercial vehicle inventories on dealer lots 
• Lack of rail capacity 
• Strikes 
• Clients should be looking at OTD and onto initial billing of a unit

Another valuable topic for our industry was to analyze the main challenges that impacted Up-Fitting in 2019. The main takeaway was that the largest projects usually have priority in the shops, the problem is that sometimes,clients might think that their projects are big enough, but in reality they are not. 

Another major challenge is transparency and punctuality when working with companies, especially smaller ones, who do not have the capacity or experience necessary to work on these big projects.

But what things can be considered by all stakeholders (OEM’s, FMC’s, Up-fitters, Dealers and Fleet Customers) that may improve the OTD process in the future? Well, all parties must plan much more for the vehicle acquisition process and the ordering process. Also, all factory orders must be placed in advance, and everyone involved must plan and execute their part of the process more effectively. Another point to consider is that the fewer Out of Stock purchases made, the better the delivery times.

Coordinating with your Up-Fitting provider so that the units arrive directly to their facility and start with the Up-Fit as soon as possible could bring you great benefits and help you save time. As always, BDS Fleet Service is here to assist when that need arises.

Photographs provided by AFLA.