Lead time is the time that passes between the moment the customer places the order and the moment the order is delivered to the customer. It is the total amount of time that it takes for the customer to receive the order from the moment they put in the order for the product to the moment they actually receive the shipment. Cycle time, on the other hand, is the amount of time that a team spends on actually producing a product uptil the point where the product is ready to be delivered. It refers to the time that is taken to complete one task.