At HighJump Software we are working on a new performance dashboard for our WMS Warehouse Management System. This is a very exciting project which will allow customers to view key metrics throughout their distribution center operations. While ensuring the dashboards are esthetically pleasing is a key element of the process, the more important part is determining what are the right metrics to include in each dashboard. In addition to relying on industry associations such as the Supply Chain Council and the Warehousing Education and Research Council, we evaluate potential metrics according to the “SMART” criteria:
S – Specific
Is the metric detailed enough to be meaningful? A metric like ‘Outbound Order Progress’ sounds interesting, but probably lacks the specificity to be useful. Metrics like order pick accuracy or number of cases shipped are more specific and tangible.
M – Measurable
There are a lot of interesting metrics, especially in supply chain, but many companies do not have the data to actually measure the metric. Total landed cost is one that comes to mind as challenging for many companies. Before selecting a set of metrics, make sure you validate your supply chain management software solutions have the data needed to calculate the metric.
A – Actionable
If the user looks at a metric and finds it interesting but is unable to take action to improve the metric, then it will not be very useful. When a metric falls below a goal or a certain tolerance, the user of the metric should be able to determine the root cause and take corrective action to improve the metric.
R- Relevant
The metric has to be relevant to the user. It would not be relevant to display outbound order metrics to the inbound receiving manager. This is why it is important to have multiple dashboards so that only relevant metrics are presented to the user. While there will be some overlapping metrics between the DC manager dashboard and the customer dashboard, it is important that only metrics that are relevant are displayed to the targeted user.
T – Time Based
The metric perfect order fulfillment sounds like a good metric, but if I just said the value was 98% that would prompt a series of questions: for what time period, is it trending up or down, how it compares to last year at this time, etc. Metrics need to have a specific timeframe associated with them and depending on the metric that timeframe could be hours, days, weeks, months, etc.
Hopefully this is helpful when you evaluate what metrics to use in your supply chain operations. More to come as our dashboard product nears completion.
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