We negotiated savings, yet stockouts and expedites keep rising
Question
We locked in solid supplier savings this year and our OTIF reports look high, but production still hits material shortages, partial shipments are common, and expedite freight is climbing. PO cycle times say “on target,” yet planners feel we’re firefighting more. Why is this happening?
Answer ✅
Price wins can hide supply stability drift. If shipments are more partial, lead times wobble, MOQs flip late, or quality holds bunch at receiving, you “meet the metrics” while the operation gets fragile. SSM-Audit places a stability band beside the supplier KPIs you already track, so you can see whether supply is calm and repeatable or cheap but spiky—before it shows up as stockouts and overtime.
What the bands would have shown 📊
• Supplier OTIF stability sliding from A+ to A0 / A- (headline OK, cadence noisy)
• Partial shipment ratio degrading to A- / A– (lines starved despite OTIF counting)
• Lead-time reliability weakening (A+ -> A0 / A-), bigger tails around promise dates
• PO change-order rate tilting to A- (late MOQ, spec, or date switches)
• Quality hold rate at receiving rising to A- (rework and delay clusters)
• Expedite freight share worsening to A- / A– (costs and chaos increase)
What to do now 🛠️
- Split the scorecard: track OTIF stability, partials, lead-time reliability, change-order rate, quality holds, expedite share per supplier.
- Calm-first sourcing: award volume to suppliers with A+ bands even if unit price is slightly higher; set improvement gates for A- suppliers.
- MOQs and buffers: align MOQ and safety stock to lead-time reliability bands; ban late MOQ flips without a gate.
- Schedule integrity: require promised-ship slots; partials below A0 trigger root-cause and recovery plan.
- Quality at source: move checks upstream for items with A- hold bands; add pre-ship photos/data for fast release.
- Expedite budget: cap expedites; when the band drops, fix upstream causes before approving more air.
How SSM-Audit helps (practicalities) 🌟
- No additional infrastructure: runs beside your ERP/APS exports and procurement dashboards.
- Numbers unchanged: your KPIs stay the same; stability is a read-only overlay.
- Easy to use: spreadsheet/BI friendly; one lightweight weekly supplier panel.
- Universal language: A++ / A+ / A0 / A- / A– aligns sourcing, planning, QA, and finance quickly.
CLI 💻 — try our mini Calculator to identify the drift
(Mini CLI Download Page)
Feed your CSVs and see bands and drift at a glance (numbers unchanged).
# OTIF stability (cadence, not just average)
ssm_audit_mini_calc supply.csv --kpi "OTIF Stability" \
--out bands_otif.csv --plot_kpi "OTIF Stability" --build_id sup
# Partial shipment ratio
ssm_audit_mini_calc supply.csv --kpi "Partial Shipment Ratio" \
--out bands_partials.csv --plot_kpi "Partial Shipment Ratio" --build_id sup
# Lead-time reliability (promise vs actual spread)
ssm_audit_mini_calc supply.csv --kpi "Lead-Time Reliability" \
--out bands_leadtime.csv --plot_kpi "Lead-Time Reliability" --build_id sup
# PO change-order rate
ssm_audit_mini_calc supply.csv --kpi "PO Change-Order Rate" \
--out bands_changes.csv --plot_kpi "PO Change-Order Rate" --build_id sup
# Quality hold rate at receiving
ssm_audit_mini_calc supply.csv --kpi "Quality Hold Rate" \
--out bands_quality.csv --plot_kpi "Quality Hold Rate" --build_id sup
# Expedite freight share
ssm_audit_mini_calc supply.csv --kpi "Expedite Freight Share" \
--out bands_expedite.csv --plot_kpi "Expedite Freight Share" --build_id sup
Outputs you will get:
- CSVs with stability bands for each timestamp (e.g.,
bands_leadtime.csv). - Drift charts per KPI (
--plot_kpi) showing where supply gets noisy. - Optional alerts if you enable thresholds in your setup.
Technical notes
Representation: x = (m, a) with a in (-1, +1)
Collapse parity: phi((m,a)) = m
Order-invariant pooling:
U = sum(w_i * atanh(a_i))
W = sum(w_i)
a_out = tanh( U / max(W, eps_w) )
Typical bands (example):
A++: a >= 0.75
A+: 0.50 - 0.75
A0: 0.25 - 0.50
A-: 0.10 - 0.25
A--: a < 0.10
Navigation
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Page disclaimer
Illustrative scenario for research and education. Observation-only; do not use for critical decisions without independent validation.
SHUNYAYA 