Ever had a sales rep promise a customer a delivery date that makes the production manager want to quit? I’ve seen it happen every Friday afternoon. Sales says “yes” to anything, and operations is left holding the bag. We brought in ERP Consulting to bridge this ridiculous gap. The fix turned out to be simpler than I thought.
The Real Issue is Not the People, It’s the Information
Sales had no visibility into actual production capacity. They were looking at a price list, but not at the manufacturing schedule. ERP Consulting sat both teams in one room and asked one question: “Where does the sales order get its delivery date from?” The answer was “from a spreadsheet that a planner updates twice a week.” That spreadsheet was always two days out of date.
- Sales would see “available” stock that was already reserved for another customer.
- Operations would see a spike in orders but had no time to change the schedule.
- Customers got angry, and we blamed each other.
What We Did: A Simple “Promise Date” Logic
We worked with ERP Consulting to create a rule in our system: a sales order can only promise a date if the system sees available inventory or open production capacity. If neither exists, the sales rep gets a big red warning and must call the customer back. We cut missed delivery promises by 60% in the first three months. The sales team actually liked it because they stopped getting yelled at by customers for late deliveries.
One Thing Most Managers Miss
Don’t just blame the salespeople. They are incentivized to sell. If you want accurate promises, give them the right tools. ERP Consulting taught us that a small change in how data flows between sales and operations can save you thousands in expedited shipping and lost customer trust.