Fagerhult AB was founded in Sweden in 1945 and is still owned by Swedish investors to 96 %. Fagerhult AB develop, manufacture, and market professional lighting systems for public environments as well as offers a range of decorative lighting also for the domestic environment.

Lead-time is an important aspect when it comes to competing for customer orders. It is however difficult to compare the value of lead-time with cost. Usually, in product costing it is the cost of the product that is valuated but not lead-time. Arguments for shortening lead-times are often met with that this will increase the price of the product. So how to value shorter lead-time?

Another perspective is that in Sweden we have difficulty competing with price compared with China. We need something else to be competitive. This could be short lead-time to customer and customer unique products but not through high inventory but through the ability to produce customer unique products with short lead-time. The ability to deliver customer unique products with short lead-time may influence the possibility for Sweden to maintain domestic production in the future.

KOPtimera is here a very interesting project for coordinating and valuing lead-times in the processes of development, purchase, production and marketing as an enabler for reaching shorter lead-time to customer and thereby receive more business and more production. It is a natural continuation of the KOPeration project.