How To Create Excel Dashboard for Tracking Warehouse Metrics and KPIs Performance
For a lot of warehouse executives and managers KPIs with the impact in the warehouse performance and the capability to display how productive and proper the warehouse performance management functions are. The issue nevertheless is the fact that any process without proper KPI management will create a questionable results.
At the same time warehouse KPIs used without having a strategy and warehouse management system in place will be numbers that don’t help anyone.
Warehouse KPIs are often created with pretty certain goals and targets of the functional warehouse performance in your mind. You simply cannot get the most of the leading nor the lagging warehouse KPIs without clear strategy. In addition to the strategy identifying the critical success factors is crucial for success of your warehouse KPI management.
Fact is before we start with the specific warehouse metrics we want to define the critical success factors (CSFs). CSFs answer the question what drive or performance. Based on the CSFs the categories or groups of KPIs are outlined. This will define the way your warehouse dashboard report will be organized.
However, without doing the entire KPI development process even if you have a decent excel dashboard with typical warehouse KPIs you would still miss a lot of opportunities for improvement.
Common approach used by warehouse managers is to start building the warehouse excel dashboard by creating a list of typical warehouse metrics and simply entering them into the excel dashboard template. While this is a good way to organize the warehouse key performance indicators still without doing the entire process many alternatives for improvement will be missed.
The warehouse KPIs alone don’t completely reflect your management framework ans in some cases they can be even confusing and overwhelming for managers.
If we go back to the initial purpose of dashboard reporting and KPI management – the goal is to have management and employees on the same page meaning everyone understands what drives performance and instantly what the trend in the metrics mean.
Next and only if you understand the meaning you can take the information to the next level and realize how you can look at various ways to improve your warehouse operations.
Just like each and every business management system must have its predefined CSFs, KPIs and metrics – same is true for warehouse management.
The changes, variations and trends in the relevant metrics and KPIs are the signals for continuous improvement in your warehouse operations. KPIs are restricting by the dynamics – focused on optimizing (minimizing / maximizing individual metrics) to improve the overall performance.
Depending on the functional targets, the KPI categories as well as the individual metrics could be prioritized different and grouped in to a few goal based upon types. The goal of the KPI is to establish a proper insight and competency in the warehouse management system.
Appropriately defined and arranged process of benchmarking and tracking KPIs lets users to further improve and keep each quality assurance and business processes in the warehouse in a good shape.
Before you start to create warehouse excel dashboard start with the planning.
Use the KPI template to brainstorm ideas and organize your metrics before you even enter anything into your dashboard. If you are serious about improving your warehouse operations, you should become a member (this service is absolutely free now) and take advantage of many templates and guides we provide to help you in your continuous improvement journey.
After you finish the planning part with the KPI templates use the excel dashboard templates to convert your plan into a KPI warehouse management system in minutes.