Posted on LinkedIn

Most logistics service providers (LSPs) present clients with monthly reports touting their on time delivery percentage. It is easy to become complacent when LSPs routinely report 97-99% on time service after taking exceptions for weather and other factors.

Why not challenge them to measure absolute performance failures instead of percentages? In a high volume operation even a small percentage can mean a lot of late shipments and unhappy customers. In a smaller operation with fewer customers every shipment is critical. If LSPs can track and report percentages they should be able to do the same for absolute numbers of shipments.

Finally, if you are an LSP, remember that you have a client on both ends of the shipment so service failures have twice the impact. Different metrics are like fresh eyes on an operation.