Warehouse KPIs: give your warehouse its MOT

What are warehouse KPIs?

A warehouse KPI is a number you track to see whether a part of your warehouse is working as it should. Picking accuracy tells you how many orders go out right. Dock to stock time tells you how fast deliveries become stock you can sell. Cost per order tells you what each order really costs to send.

The point of a KPI is to spot a problem while it's still small. If picking accuracy slips from 99.5% to 98.5%, that's one extra wrong order in every hundred. You want to see that in a weekly report, not in a pile of complaints a month later.

Good warehouse KPIs have three things in common. They are written down with an exact formula, so everyone works them out the same way. They come from records you trust, not from memory. And somebody looks at them every week and acts on them.

12 warehouse KPIs, with formulas and examples

These are the warehouse KPIs that matter most, in the order stock moves through a warehouse. The examples use round numbers from a typical UK warehouse, and they match the free calculator in our scorecard above, which works out every one for you.

Best-in-class figures are the top 20% of warehouses in WERC's DC Measures study (2026 figures where published, otherwise 2025). WERC is a US-based warehousing research body, so treat these figures as a stretch target, not a pass mark. Your own trend matters more than anyone else's number.

Warehouse KPIs by stage, from goods-in to returns

Goods in

Watch dock to stock time and put-away accuracy. Stock sitting on the dock can't be picked or sold, and stock put away in the wrong place is as good as lost until someone finds it. Booking deliveries in before they arrive is the quickest way to shorten dock to stock time.

Storage

Watch inventory accuracy, space used and inventory turnover. Inventory accuracy is the foundation for everything else: if the records are wrong, every pick, reorder and promise to a customer is a guess. Shrinkage is worth tracking here too: (recorded stock minus counted stock) divided by recorded stock, x 100.

To decide which products to count most often, use our free ABC analysis tool. To set the right buffer for each product, try our safety stock calculator and reorder point calculator.

Picking

Watch picking accuracy and picks per hour together. Push speed on its own and accuracy usually drops. Track both by person and by shift, because a team average hides who needs a hand and which shift is stretched.

Dispatch

Watch order cycle time and on-time dispatch. Your customers don't see your warehouse, they see whether their order arrived when you said it would. Backorder rate is worth adding if you often run short: order lines you couldn't send in full, divided by total order lines, x 100.

Returns

Watch return rate, and log a reason for every return. A high return rate in fashion is normal. A rise in "wrong item" returns anywhere points straight back to picking.

People and money

Watch cost per order and your accident frequency rate. Cost per order ties every other KPI back to money. Safety belongs on the same report as productivity, because a warehouse that's fast but unsafe isn't working well.

Six warehouse KPIs to track first

If you don't track any KPIs today, don't start with all twelve. Start with these six. Between them they cover accuracy, speed, cost and safety.

• Picking accuracy, because every wrong order costs you a re-send, a refund or a customer
• Inventory accuracy, because every other number depends on your stock records being right
• Order cycle time, because it shows how quickly you turn an order into a parcel
• On-time dispatch, because it's the promise your customers judge you on
• Cost per order, because it turns everything else into pounds
• Accidents and near misses, because some injuries must be reported to HSE under RIDDOR, and near misses warn you before anyone gets hurt

Measure each one for four weeks before you set a target. Your own starting point is a fairer target than a figure from someone else's warehouse.

How to build a warehouse KPI dashboard

A warehouse KPI dashboard is one screen or one page that shows your key numbers at a glance. It doesn't need to be fancy. It needs to be right, up to date and looked at.

• Pick six to ten KPIs. More than that and nobody reads it.
• Write down the exact formula for each one, including what counts as an order, a line and a mistake.
• Decide where each number comes from: your system, a log or a count.
• Show the trend for the last 12 weeks, not just this week's figure.
• Split the key ones by shift or by team, so averages don't hide problems.
• Review it every week with the people who can fix things, and agree one action each time.

If you're building your dashboard by hand from spreadsheets every week, that time is a cost too. Our Spreadsheet Escape Test shows whether you've outgrown them.

Common mistakes with warehouse KPIs

• Measuring picking accuracy from complaints. Customers don't report every mistake, so the real figure is lower than you think. Check orders before they leave, or log every re-send.
• Mixing up orders and lines. An order with ten lines and one wrong item is one wrong order but nine right lines. Pick one way of counting and stick to it.
• Trusting averages. A team average of 45 picks per hour can hide one picker at 70 and another at 25.
• Chasing one number. Reward speed alone and accuracy falls. Pair every speed KPI with a quality KPI.
• Different rules at different sites. If two warehouses count late orders differently, comparing them tells you nothing.
• Only looking once a month. By then a small problem has had four weeks to grow.
• Not logging near misses. Every near miss is a free warning about where the next accident could happen.

A simple warehouse audit checklist

A warehouse audit doesn't have to take a week. Walk the flow from goods-in to dispatch and check a small sample at each stage. These checks give you a starting figure for most of the KPIs above.

• Time the next 10 deliveries from arrival to ready to pick
• Count 20 locations and compare them with your records
• Check 50 picked orders against the order before they're packed
• Note the order time and dispatch time on 20 orders
• Count last week's late orders and the reason for each
• Walk the returns area and count anything waiting to be processed
• Read the accident book and ask whether near misses are written down
• Add up last month's warehouse costs and divide by the orders you sent

Or take our free scorecard above. It runs the same checks as a nine-point MOT and gives you a pass, advisories or a fail in about three minutes.

How to improve warehouse efficiency

Once you can see your numbers, these are the changes that move them most.

• Put your fastest movers closest to dispatch. Less walking means more picks per hour.
• Count little and often. Small weekly counts catch errors while they're still easy to fix.
• Confirm every pick. Checking each pick as it happens stops wrong items before they reach a customer.
• Pick in waves. Grouping orders that can be picked together cuts walking and order cycle time.
• Book deliveries in. When goods-in knows what's coming and when, stock gets put away faster.
• Fix the top return reason first. One fix can remove a big share of your returns.
• Know your cost per order. It's the number that tells you whether the other changes are paying off.

Track your warehouse KPIs with Minster

Minster's warehouse management systems record every stock movement, so your KPIs come from live records instead of a spreadsheet someone updates on a Friday.

• A productivity overview shows how productive the warehouse and its people are at a glance, with reports on warehouse operative performance
• Reports can run and send automatically on a schedule, and export to Excel or .csv in a few clicks
• Expense controls give you exact management information on the true costs of your warehouse operations
• Products are grouped by how often they should be counted, so you count little and often
• Products can be re-slotted by how fast they sell, so quick movers sit closest to dispatch

Minster's workflows deliver 99.98% picking accuracy and cut dispatch times by up to 80%. CORE is Minster's entry-level system, favoured by small and medium businesses, and EDGE is built for larger or more complex operations. With Minster, you could be up and running with a highly capable SaaS WMS within 24 hours, with around-the-clock technical support from our UK-based team. See more on our warehouse reporting page.