Hi Dentist, I am afraid that I am not commiting as much time at I should on this blog. Our company has been developing a data centre from which to host our services. The recent blog entries that I have created are in http://www.cix.ie.

Thanks for your question.

I work in industries that have to deliver after sales service in order to support sales that have already been made. Service is a cost of doing business

In your industry service is the product.

However, turn around time (TAT) is equally valid in both sectors. In your case the definition of TAT would be the time taken from order placement to order fulfillment. The only area therefore requiring clarification would be the strict definition of time of order placement and time of order fulfillment.

Time of order placement:
I imagine this is easy to define for a particular sale or contract as there is usually documentary confirmation of the transaction.

Time of order fulfillment:
This is far more difficult to define. Consider the three following possibilities.
1) The earliest date on which delivery is possible, the customer may delay commensement beyond that time but TAT might not include customer delays.
2) The date of commensement of services or first delivery of materials.
3) The date of completion of services or final delivery of materials.

I hope these comments give you food for thought.

Regards
Xavier