The worst thing one can do is tell a customer something will be ready in two hours. For in two hours time, the customer will be calling and if the product is not ready, the customer gets jacked and ugly. Better to tell customer that "whatever" will be ready in four or five hours. Then when you have it ready in two hours and the customer calls after three hours and is told it is ready, you are golden.

Sounds like the biggest problem is too-tight lead time dates. Instead of giving two month leads times for turn-around, maybe he should be giving six month lead times. And then if he can deliver "early" all will be happy.

But you can't keep everybody happy. Say it will take six months and some people will drag you thru the phone line wanting a shorter lead time. Engineers were the worst in thinking products just fall from the sky.