Cycle time is the elapsed time between defined start and end events in a process. In procurement, examples include request-to-approval, sourcing-event-to-award, order-to-receipt, or invoice-to-ready-for-payment. A useful metric names its boundaries, exclusions, pauses, business-calendar rules, and population so teams do not compare fundamentally different measures.
In plain English
It measures how long a clearly defined procurement process takes from one event to another.
Illustrative example
At Northstar Industrial Systems, the team measures request submission to final approval, excluding withdrawn requests and separately reporting time spent waiting for requester information.
- Related terms
- Service-level agreement; Lead time; Bottleneck; Success metric
- Lifecycle stages
- All stages
- Stakeholders
- Procurement; Operations; Executive leadership