Start networking and exchanging professional insights

Register now or log in to join your professional community.

Miguel Gaitan
by Miguel Gaitan , Manager Strategic Pricing, Procurement, Packaging, Innovations. Cost Analyst , Lake County Press, inc.

a logistics score card may look like this;

 

A) On Time delivery percentage - Must be judiciously measured

B) Cost to Customer must be perceived as being of sound value - Comparative costing

C) Cost of non - conformances due to poor execution.

D) Time to execute logistics from time product provided to Shiping Department ( Internal Controls 

SHAHZAD Yaqoob
by SHAHZAD Yaqoob , SENIOR ACCOUNTANT , ABDULLAH H AL SHUWAYER

All you need to know about Supply Chain KPIs is right here

 

Many people get really confused about KPIs or Key Performance Indicators, in Logistics and Supply Chain operations.  Which ones to use, how many to use?

Supply Chain and Logistics KPIs

Sadly it’s not such an easy question.

Of course they need to be SMART.  Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time phased.

But my take on KPIs is this.

  1. Don’t have too many! I’ve literally seen KPI ‘packs’ the size of phone books, and even KPI sets circulated as a monthly magazine… that no one reads. Remember what the K stands for!
  2. Make sure they ‘tie’ in with your goals and objectives. Do they directly support those objectives?

 

So that unfortunately means, that many of your supply chain KPIs may not be stock standard ones. But in Supply Chain you would normally expect to see this standard set, along with those that are more specific to your business needs.

  • DIF – Delivery in Full
  • DOT – Delivery on Time
  • DIFOT – Delivery In Full on Time
  • Cost as a percentage of sales (Logistics or Supply Chain)
  • Inventory stock turns in Days.

If you’d like to read more about Supply Chain KPIs, you can download (free) a chapter from one of our Best Selling Books on the topic.

Click here to download your Free book chapter

KPIs in Supply Chain – The Basics

1. Overview

As in any business activity, supply chain operations need to focus constantly on improvement to compete in the market place. But how do you know if your supply chain performance is being maintained, or if it’s getting better, or worse?

This is where KPIs come in.

 

What’s a KPI, Anyway?

KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator, and can be defined as a practical and objective measurement of progress, either:

  • Towards a predetermined goal, or
  • Against a required standard of performance

It might help to think of a KPI as something like an instrument on a car dashboard. Take a speedometer for example. If you are driving your car and you wish to maintain a speed of 50 KPH, you will use your speedometer to maintain that speed. You will drive a little faster if your speedometer needle drops below 50KPH or you will slow down if it climbs above the required speed.

You will use a KPI in the same way as your car’s speedometer. The only difference is that in most cases, you won’t wish to lower performance when a business activity exceeds the required standard. In fact, if your car has a fuel consumption gauge and you use this to try and drive economically, then you are making use of a bona fide KPI.

 

Why Are KPIs Important?

Using KPIs for performance measurement ensures that you are always evaluating your business activity against a static benchmark. This means that fluctuations are immediately visible and if performance moves in the wrong direction, action can quickly be taken to address the situation.

When a KPI shows that performance is consistently meeting or exceeding the required level, you can decide to raise the bar and set a higher standard to aspire to. For this reason, KPIs are essential for any business improvement strategy.

Apart from an internal desire to improve and compete, KPIs are likely to play a part in attracting and retaining customers. This is especially true in any business where customers tie into agreements or contracts. Service level agreements in particular will be monitored through KPIs agreed between a business and its customer, with the probability of penalties being applied when performance falls below agreed levels.

In short, KPIs provide visibility of business performance and allow objective quantitative and qualitative evaluation. When aligned with business goals, KPIs take away the guess work and enable focus to be centred on progress towards the goals.

 

Supply Chain KPIs

When measuring the effectiveness and cost of your supply chain you will need to set up and monitor KPIs which give visibility of cross functional activity as well as those which apply to individual supply chain components. Later in this e-Class we’ll look at some examples of functional and cross functional KPIs. Broadly speaking though, the following areas are those where KPIs will be necessary:

  1.  Order capture
  2.   Inventory management
  3.  Purchasing and supplier management
  4.  Production/manufacturing
  5.  Warehousing
  6.  Transportation

Cross functional KPIs are likely to provide snapshots of the following end to end performance factors:

  • Perfect order (the degree of accuracy to which customers’ requirements are being met)
  • Inventory levels
  • Stock losses and/or damages
  • Gross profit
  • Cost of goods sold
  • Total logistics cost

Cross functional KPIs should be constructed in such a way that each function can see its contribution towards the overall supply chain performance.

Epefania Carillo
by Epefania Carillo , HR Admin / Secretary / Import & Export Shipping Coordinator / Customer Service , L ' ISOLANTE

key performance indicator.

  • DIF – Delivery in Full
  • DOT – Delivery on Time
  • DIFOT – Delivery In Full on Time
  • Cost as a percentage of sales (Logistics or Supply Chain)
  • Inventory stock turns in Days.

 

sanoj jose
by sanoj jose , Procurement & Logistics Coordinator , Cable Depot FZCO

  • DIF – Delivery in Full
  • DOT – Delivery on Time
  • DIFOT – Delivery In Full on Time

Shahid Mian
by Shahid Mian , National Inventory Manager , Tabcorp

DIFOT - Delivery in full on time

Service Level - %age availability

These two are the main. Rest differ from business to business. A multitude of others can be

Stock accuracy

Receiving efficiency

Picking accuracy

stocktake variance

truck turn around time

and many many more

Muhammad Usman Khalid
by Muhammad Usman Khalid , Assistant Supply Chain Manager , Asian Lubricating Oil Company

1. OTIF (On Time in Full) %age

But deliveries can be made partially therefore IN FULL may not apply in each case.

2. Damage Free delivery %age

3. Responsiveness of Service provider (In case of 3PL)   

Hamdi Zarour
by Hamdi Zarour , Logistics Officer , INTERSOS

Key performance indicators in logistics are used to track logistical performance. For example: 

- Number of orders in full on time

- Order lead time

- Picking accuracy

- dock to stock time 

- Accurate invoicing 

Sathik Ali Sukkur
by Sathik Ali Sukkur , Procurement Assistant (Buyer) , Abu Dhabi Gas Liquefaction Compant Ltd.

KPI in Logistics are meant for logistical performance criterion.

 

  • DIF – Delivery in Full
  • DOT – Delivery on Time
  • DIFOT – Delivery In Full on Time

Bassem Sherif Zidan
by Bassem Sherif Zidan , Order Fulfillment Lead , Nestlé Middle East

1-On time delivery.

2- Sales plan fulfillment.

3-Warehouse utilization.

4-Cost of distribution.

Shukan Mehta
by Shukan Mehta , Operations expansion - Supply chain , Fetchr

  • DIF 
  • DOT 
  • DIFOT 
  • Receiving on time
  • Receiving accuracy

Vipul Vivekanandan
by Vipul Vivekanandan , LOGISTICS CUSTOMER SERVICE EXECUTIVE , DHL WORLDWIDE EXPRESS LLC

Each and every task has it's own KPI's as agreed with the customer in terms of picking, packing, dispatching, delivery, transit time, cycle counts, Inventory management.

More Questions Like This

Do you need help in adding the right keywords to your CV? Let our CV writing experts help you.