Order Hubs: A Perfect Order's Just Really in the Eye of the Beholder

WHAT'S A PERFECT ORDER THEY ASK???

So I've been getting this question about once a week or so for the past 2 years. And basically, everyone starts the conversation from their perspective of what an order is. The supply chain guys think fulfilment, the CRM/eCommerce gals think order capture. and the ERP peeps think billing and payment. In fact, they are all correct! But let me suggest:

Take a process view first
However, you should take a process based view. This is about 4 key processes:

1. Opportunity to order capture - all the stuff to capture information for the order and send it on to the next step
   
2. Order capture to order fulfillment - the guts and logistics of fulfilling an order from pick,pack, ship to TMS, WMS.
   
3. Order fulfillment to order completion - the processes that may occur before an order is satisified such as returns, after market service, installation scheduling, and warranty claims.
   
4. Order completion to order settlement - invoicing, AP/AR, financial stuff.
   

Revisit what an order is really about
The basic notion is a stakeholder gets an order and they have their expectations to have this filled every time, without question and with minimal effort. Not the best definition, but when we drill further into major factors, it becomes apparent that there are about 10 key items to think about. A perfect order delivers:

1. The right product or service in the
   
2. The right quantity with
3. The right configuration that meets
4. The right levels of quality from
5. The right source delivered in
6. The right condition and packaging with
7. The right documentation in
8. The right period of time for
9. The right cost over
   
10. The right frequency
    

So, as you can imagine, there is such a thing as a perfect order, it's just in the eye of the beholder!

NOTE: Now I know others have had various versions of this and I do want to credit their work and especially Edward Marien at the University of Wisconsin who's talked about this for the past few years from a customer bill of rights perspective

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Copyrighted 2007 by R Wang. All rights reserved