Stabilise on-time delivery from final pack through carrier pickup

Customer promise dates are set in the ERP, but our OTIF metric has been red for three weeks. Leadership asked for a single A3 to align pack, planning, and logistics on facts and experiments — not opinions.

Pack-and-label runs a fixed headcount with no buffer. Mid-week spikes hit on Tuesday–Wednesday. Carriers collect at 16:00; after 15:45 we miss the slot and the shipment rolls to the next day. WIP in front of pack is not capped; planners push “hot” orders that disrupt sequence.

OTIF ≥ 98% within 8 weeks, with no increase in pack headcount. Cutoff misses ≤ 1 per week. Visual standard in pack shows max queue and sequence rules; planners level promise dates within demonstrated pack capacity.

5 Whys + data: the bottleneck is not “people working slower” — it is that demand variation hits pack before planning adjusts, and we have no time buffer or leveling rule tied to carrier cutoff. S&OP output is not translated into a daily pack TAKT / WIP limit.

Week 1–2: baseline cutoff misses, train backup, install WIP limit marker. Week 3–4: run pilot; track OTIF, queue time, and misses. Early result (example): misses dropped from 9 → 4 in two weeks; need 2 more weeks to confirm.

If pilot holds: update standard work, train night shift, add KPI to tier-2 board. Yokoten to second site after 30 stable days. If not: stop and revisit root cause with scheduling data.