In many warehouses the problem is not a lack of indicators but too many of them. Dozens of figures circulate every morning without anyone knowing which ones should trigger a decision.
Start from decisions, not data
A good indicator answers a specific question asked by an identified decision-maker. The team leader wants to know whether the 4 pm cut-off will be met; the site manager wants to know whether costs are under control; management wants to know whether the service level promised to the customer is delivered.
A foundation in four families
- Productivity: lines or parcels processed per worked hour, by process.
- Quality: picking error rate, inventory discrepancies, claims.
- Lead time: receipt-to-putaway cycle time, cut-off compliance.
- Workload: backlog to process and next-day workload forecast.
Make data reliable before automating
A Power BI dashboard does not fix wrong data; it spreads it faster. Before any automation, each indicator must be defined (formula, source, scope, frequency) in a shared dictionary.
Keep indicators alive
KPIs only have value if they are discussed: a short briefing at the start of each shift, a weekly trend review and tracked actions. That routine, more than the tool, is what creates performance.
