What it means
Businesses hold goods for many reasons: incoming inspection, an out-of-range test, a supplier certificate gap or a suspected defect. During the hold, inventory may be physically present but not available to fulfil an order.
Recording how long batches spend in that state helps managers plan stock and find where decisions stall. Define the start and end events in the system: does the clock begin when a batch is received, when a hold is placed or when the issue is discovered, and does it end at quality approval, system release or the first shipment?
Use the same boundaries across comparable batches. Separate routine planned testing from exceptional investigations.
Record the reason for hold, owner, required evidence and next review time, because some tests genuinely need time and a disputed supplier response can extend a hold, while other delays arise because no one knows who may approve release. A reason code helps distinguish necessary waiting from preventable administrative waiting.
A hold may await lab results, supplier records or a quality investigation, so the cause should be coded without assuming every wait is avoidable. Report a distribution, not only an average, because a few batches stuck for weeks can be hidden by many same-day releases, and segment by product, supplier, facility and hold cause while examining the oldest open items.
Report duration separately for batches released, rejected and still on hold, since removing old unresolved holds from the average makes the process look faster without moving stock or reaching a decision. A percentile or age-bucket view can show a small set of very old cases hidden by the mean.
The financial effect can be significant: quarantined stock occupies space and ties up cash, while a customer order may need alternative stock or a revised date. If a batch is ultimately scrapped, that is a separate disposition and should not be recorded as a successful release.
Never release a batch just to improve the metric if safety, regulatory or contractual checks are incomplete. For managers, the aim is a reliable decision process, and the measure should show how quickly the right evidence reaches the right approver, without turning quality into a race.
Define who can authorise a release and which evidence is required for that product. A target turnaround time never overrides the actual release standard.
In practice
Real-world examples.
Example
A food manufacturer holds a production batch for required test results and records the period until its quality team approves release. The batch is received into stock but flagged unavailable, so sales cannot promise it. The recorded duration includes the weekend when the laboratory was closed.
Example
A retailer's inbound product waits three days for a missing supplier certificate even though physical inspection was finished on day one. The delay is coded as a documentation wait rather than a testing wait. The buyer uses that evidence to ask the supplier to send certificates with the delivery.
Example
A failed test leads to a batch being rejected after five days. The time is captured as quarantine to disposition, not falsely counted as a release. Finance books the write-off separately, and the quality team records the cause.
Formula
Calculation
Quarantine duration = Final disposition timestamp - Hold start timestamp
Average duration = Sum of comparable batch durations / Number of those batches
Worked example. Three fictional batches are held for 12, 24 and 60 hours from hold to disposition, so the total duration is 12 + 24 + 60 = 96 hours and the average is 96 / 3 = 32 hours. The median is 24 hours, which shows how the 60-hour case pulls the average above the typical batch and deserves its own review.
Open holds should be reported separately from closed durations. If a fourth batch is still open after 120 hours, folding it in would give (96 + 120) / 4 = 54 hours and blur two different things, whereas reporting the closed average of 32 hours beside one open hold of 120 hours shows both.Case study
Seen in the real world.
This illustrative and entirely fictional example follows Ember Ceramics, an invented tile maker. A quality dashboard showed a reasonable average hold time, yet a major customer's order remained delayed. The team found that most batches passed quickly while two with colour-test exceptions had sat unassigned for nine days. Ember listed open batches by age and reason. It found the laboratory had finished one test but the result was not routed to the release approver.
The second batch needed a supplier pigment investigation and remained on hold. The manager fixed the notification path, set a review owner and gave the customer a truthful delivery update. The business did not relax the colour standard. It shortened avoidable administrative time while retaining testing and independent approval. Reporting the oldest open cases made the problem visible before another order was promised.
Watch out
Common mistakes.
- Calling a rejected or scrapped batch "released" just to close the quarantine clock.
- Using average duration alone and missing a handful of very old open holds.
- Pressuring quality staff to release inventory before the required evidence and approvals are complete.
Questions
People also ask.
Should planned test time count?
Define the measure clearly. It can include all time unavailable for use, while reason codes separate planned testing from unexpected delay.
Can a batch have more than one hold?
Yes. Track each hold event and, where useful, total unavailable time without double counting overlapping periods.
What is a good target?
It depends on product, risk and required checks. Set targets by comparable hold type, not one universal number.
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