Does lead time include shipping?

Almost never. Lead time is production; transit is separate and can add days for a domestic parcel or many weeks for containerised freight. Ask the vendor which they quoted before you promise a date.

What restarts a lead time?

A change to the specification after the order is placed, a late COM delivery, or a deposit that has not cleared. Each of them stops the factory, and the clock generally resumes from the resolution rather than picking up where it left off.

DefinitionUpdated July 31, 20262 min read

Lead time: what the clock is actually measuring

Lead time is production time — from a vendor holding your order and deposit to the goods being ready to ship. Why it excludes transit, receiving and installation, and what restarts it.

By Idan Mann, founder of NYA

The short answer

Lead time is the production window: the time from the vendor holding your purchase order and deposit to the goods being ready to leave the factory. It does not include transit, receiving, inspection or installation — which is why a "12-week" sofa routinely lands on site closer to sixteen.

Lead time is quoted at the point of sale and misread at every point after it. It is the factory's number, it starts later than clients assume, and it ends earlier than they assume — three ways for the same figure to be honest and still disappoint.

What sits either side of the quoted number

Stage	Counted in lead time?	What it depends on
Client approval → PO raised	No	Your office
PO sent → vendor acknowledges with deposit	No — but it starts the clock	Deposit clearing, credit terms
COM fabric in transit to the factory	No — production waits on it	The mill's own stock and shipping
Production	Yes — this is the quoted figure	The factory
Transit to your receiver	No	Freight carrier, distance, mode
Receiving, inspection, storage	No	Your warehouse
Delivery and installation	No	Your schedule and the site

The clock starts when the vendor has the order and the deposit — and on COM orders, when the fabric arrives. An approval that sits three weeks before the purchase order goes out has already spent three weeks of the client's patience on your admin.

How to quote it to a client

Quote a date range on site, not the factory's weeks. The client cares about the room, not the plant.
Put lead times on the proposal, per item, so approval and expectation are set together.
Re-confirm at acknowledgement. The quoted figure at specification is an estimate; the one on the acknowledgement is the commitment.
Track the longest item per room — an install date is set by the slowest piece, not the average.

The free order tracker template has a column for every one of these stages, including the deposit-cleared date the clock actually starts from.

Common questions

Does lead time include shipping?: Almost never. Lead time is production; transit is separate and can add days for a domestic parcel or many weeks for containerised freight. Ask the vendor which they quoted before you promise a date.
What restarts a lead time?: A change to the specification after the order is placed, a late COM delivery, or a deposit that has not cleared. Each of them stops the factory, and the clock generally resumes from the resolution rather than picking up where it left off.