Blog · Board and management reporting · Logistics
Measure delivery reliability, freight costs and warehouse execution from shipment and cost exports. A worked example shows how consistent populations and denominators make carrier and site comparisons useful.
Logistics KPIs measure whether freight arrives as promised, what it costs to move, and whether warehouse work meets its service requirements. The most useful set combines delivery reliability, freight cost per shipment, damage, warehouse release, picking accuracy and labor productivity.
The formulas are straightforward. The hard part is deciding which shipments, orders and costs belong together so that a carrier or site comparison reflects performance rather than inconsistent counting.
Give every key performance indicator a written definition: its business owner, event date, numerator, denominator, exclusions and reporting cutoff. Separate transport shipments from warehouse orders and pick lines. They represent different units of work.
For the transport example below, include every shipment with a customer delivery deadline from September 1 through September 30, 2026. Check delivery status as of October 5, 2026. Use the contractual deadline and receiving-location time zone; retain overdue shipments that have not arrived.
Keep customer-requested cancellations outside the eligible population only under a documented rule. Preserve the original and revised delivery commitments so that moving a promise date cannot quietly turn a late shipment into an on-time one. Missing proof of delivery is unresolved evidence, not automatic success.
For inventory availability and demand-planning measures, use the broader supply-chain KPI guide. This article focuses on transport and warehouse execution.
Use a shipment export with shipment ID, carrier, origin site, lane, service level, promised arrival, actual arrival and condition evidence. Join freight invoices and accruals by shipment ID in your working spreadsheet. Keep unmatched charges visible for review.
Freight cost here includes linehaul, fuel and accessorial charges attributable to the cohort, including accrued charges not yet invoiced. It excludes warehouse labor, which has its own measure below. The same cost definition must apply to both carriers.
Keep separate charge rows while reviewing invoices, then sum those charges to each shipment before counting shipments. A shipment with multiple invoice lines is still one shipment. Reconcile the summed cost to the relevant ledger accounts and explain timing differences from the shipment cohort.
This fictional US distributor has the following shipment summary. All completed deliveries have confirmed condition records at the cutoff.
| Site and carrier | Due shipments | Delivered by cutoff | Delivered on time | Damaged deliveries | Freight cost (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| East, carrier A | 60 | 60 | 54 | 1 | 7,200 |
| East, carrier B | 40 | 38 | 32 | 2 | 6,000 |
| West, carrier A | 30 | 30 | 27 | 0 | 3,900 |
| West, carrier B | 20 | 20 | 16 | 1 | 3,600 |
| Total | 150 | 148 | 129 | 4 | 20,700 |
On-time delivery = Shipments delivered by their deadline / Eligible shipments due
Freight cost per due shipment = Freight cost assigned to the cohort / Eligible shipments due
Damage rate = Confirmed damaged deliveries / Completed deliveries with confirmed condition
The damage rate has a different denominator because an undelivered shipment has no final delivery condition. State the count awaiting delivery or condition confirmation alongside it. Do not describe an unobserved shipment as damage-free.
| Measure | Calculation | Result (USD for unit cost) |
|---|---|---|
| On-time delivery | 129 / 150 × 100 | 86.0% |
| Delivered late by cutoff | 148 − 129 | 19 shipments |
| Still undelivered | 150 − 148 | 2 shipments |
| Missed delivery promises | 19 + 2 = 150 − 129 | 21 shipments |
| Freight cost per due shipment | 20,700 / 150 | 138.00 |
| Damage rate | 4 / 148 × 100 | 2.7% |
Percentages are rounded to one decimal and unit costs to two decimals. Keep full precision when combining groups. The service reconciliation is 129 on time + 19 late + 2 undelivered = 150 due shipments.
Dividing on-time shipments only by completed deliveries gives 129 / 148 = 87.2%. That is a different measure and hides the overdue open shipments. Label it separately if it serves a specific operational purpose.
Carrier A has 60 + 30 = 90 due shipments, with 54 + 27 = 81 on time: 90.0%. Its cost is 7,200 + 3,900 = $11,100, or $123.33 per due shipment. Carrier B has 40 + 20 = 60 due shipments, with 32 + 16 = 48 on time: 80.0%; its 6,000 + 3,600 = $9,600 costs $160.00 per due shipment.
That comparison is a starting point. Check lane, weight and service mix before changing allocations. Use cost of shipping per pound when weight explains a material part of the cost difference.
The warehouse export needs order ID, required release time, actual release, completed pick lines, correct pick lines and labor hours. The following is a separate warehouse work cohort; its orders are not assumed to correspond one-for-one with transport shipments.
| Site | Orders due for release | Released on time | Completed pick lines | Correct pick lines | Labor hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| East | 100 | 92 | 400 | 396 | 40 |
| West | 50 | 45 | 150 | 147 | 20 |
| Total | 150 | 137 | 550 | 543 | 60 |
The pick lines and labor hours cover the same completed work. Define labor consistently, including whether supervision, breaks and temporary labor are included.
On-time warehouse release = Orders released by required time / Orders due for release
Picking accuracy = Correct completed pick lines / Completed pick lines
Labor productivity = Completed pick lines / Labor hours for that work
The totals are 137 / 150 = 91.3% on-time release, 543 / 550 = 98.7% picking accuracy, and 550 / 60 = 9.2 lines per labor hour. Accuracy is measured by line here, so one correct line does not prove that its entire order was correct.
For carrier or site summaries in a spreadsheet, SUMIFS adds values meeting the chosen criteria and supports wildcard matches. Using the transport table as printed, column A contains site and carrier, B due shipments, and D on-time shipments. With data in rows 2 through 5, carrier A's rate is:
=SUMIFS(D2:D5,A2:A5,"*carrier A")/SUMIFS(B2:B5,A2:A5,"*carrier A")
The asterisk matches the site text before "carrier A", so both East and West rows qualify. The formula returns 81 / 90 = 90.0%.
On an underlying export with one row per shipment, COUNTIFS counts rows meeting multiple criteria. For carrier in A and an audited on-time flag in D:
=COUNTIFS(A2:A151,"A",D2:D151,1)/COUNTIFS(A2:A151,"A")
Use that formula only after restricting the rows to the eligible due-date cohort. Covirage is not affiliated with Microsoft.
Upload your shipment, freight-cost and warehouse exports to Covirage, which maps the columns. Its tools compute and check the figures, and the external AI model explains the carrier and site comparisons with every figure traced to its rows. Create a free Covirage account and bring a sample of your own data.
See Covirage for shipping and logistics for the industry context.
Start with on-time delivery and freight cost per shipment for transport. Add damage rate where condition evidence is available. For warehouse execution, track on-time release, picking accuracy and lines processed per labor hour, with each denominator stated.
An overdue shipment belongs in a due-date delivery cohort even if it remains undelivered at the reporting cutoff. Otherwise, the worst failures disappear from the denominator. Report open overdue shipments separately so readers can see the unresolved work.
Compare carriers on similar lanes, shipment sizes and service commitments. Use the same deadline rules and cost scope. A carrier handling more difficult freight can have a worse overall rate even when it performs better within comparable groups.
No. An order can create several shipments, while one shipment can consolidate several orders. Use shipment identifiers for transport costs and order identifiers for order-service measures, then reconcile the relationship before comparing the two.