Supply Chain KPI Dashboard Example

Supply Chain Performance Dashboard

A distributor can have a full warehouse and still disappoint customers. The racks are packed, the order comes in, and the one part the contractor needs is the one that isn't there. Meanwhile the cash that paid for everything else sits on a shelf for months.

That tension got sharper over the last two years. In The Hackett Group's 2026 working capital survey of the 1,000 largest North American nonfinancial companies, days inventory outstanding rose 0.6 days and days sales outstanding worsened 2.1 days in fiscal 2025. Hackett linked part of the inventory to tariff exposure and supply uncertainty, and put the working capital those companies could free up at $1.94 trillion.

Holding stock didn't get cheaper either. The Logistics Managers' Index for September 2026 put inventory costs at 79.9 and transportation prices at 92.7, where anything above 50 means rising, and named tariffs as the main pressure on inventory costs. Across US business as a whole, the inventories-to-sales ratio fell from 1.40 in August 2025 to 1.33 in August 2026. Companies are carrying less stock for every dollar they sell, so the stock they do carry has to be the right stock.

The company on this dashboard is invented: a US wholesale distributor of plumbing and HVAC parts, the kind of supplier the contractors on our plumbing and HVAC dashboard examples buy from. None of the figures belong to a real business: they're modeled. Two of the targets below have a published benchmark behind them, and the table says which. The other eight are starting points.

What is a Supply Chain KPI Dashboard?

Overview

A supply chain KPI dashboard shows whether orders leave complete and on time, whether the stock behind them is earning its place, and how long your cash is tied up between paying a supplier and getting paid.

It starts with the promise to the customer. Line fill rate tells you whether you had the part. On-time delivery tells you whether it arrived when you said. Perfect order rate is the strict version: complete, on time, undamaged and with the right paperwork, all on the same order. Order cycle time is how long the customer waited.

Behind every order is the stock. Supplier OTIF shows whether your own orders arrived on time and in full. Forecast accuracy is the check on purchasing, because a stockout often starts with an order nobody placed. Turns measure how hard the stock is working.

And all of it is paid for in cash. Days sales outstanding is how long customers take to pay. Cash-to-cash cycle time pulls stock, receivables and payables into one number of days. Freight cost as a share of sales shows what all that service costs to deliver.

Who benefits from this dashboard?

1. Owner or CFO: Cash-to-cash cycle time and inventory turns answer the question the bank asks: how much money is sitting in the warehouse, and is it coming back faster than last year?
2. Operations and Warehouse Manager: Fill rate, on-time delivery and order cycle time show where orders go wrong, at the shelf, at the dock or with the carrier.
3. Purchasing: Supplier OTIF and forecast accuracy show whether a stockout started with a supplier who shipped late or with an order that was never placed.
4. Sales and Customer Service: Every complaint call is a failed perfect order. Watching the rate tells them which promises the business can keep this week.
5. Credit Control: When contractors start paying slower, days sales outstanding moves a month or two before the cash position does.

Read inventory turns and line fill rate together. Buying more stock nearly always pushes turns down. If fill rate doesn't rise with it, the money went into the wrong parts.

Dashboard Example Overview

The distributor sells about 11,000 parts to plumbing and HVAC contractors from two distribution centers, with about $85 million in annual sales, roughly 40% of it from imported lines. It reports monthly against ten KPIs:

• Line Fill Rate: Order lines shipped complete from stock on the first shipment, as a share of lines ordered. Backorders count against it, even if the part ships the next day.
• On-Time Delivery: Customer orders delivered on or before the date promised. Promised, not requested, so the definition of the promise date needs writing down.
• Perfect Order Rate: Orders delivered complete, on time, undamaged and with correct paperwork. Counted per order, the way the ASCM SCOR model defines it, not by multiplying the other rates together. APQC's median is built the multiplied way, so treat that comparison as approximate.
• Order Cycle Time: How long the customer waited, in days, from the order landing to the goods arriving.
• Supplier OTIF: Purchase order lines received on time and in full, as a share of lines due. Your suppliers' fill rate, measured on you.
• Forecast Accuracy: One minus the weighted absolute percentage error, by item and month. It shows whether purchasing is buying what sells.
• Inventory Turns: Annualized cost of goods sold divided by average inventory at cost. At six turns, the average part sits about 61 days.
• Days Sales Outstanding: Receivables divided by average daily credit sales. This company sells on 30-day terms, so a reading past the low 40s means contractors are paying late.
• Cash-to-Cash Cycle Time: Days inventory outstanding, plus days sales outstanding, minus days payables outstanding. One number for how long the money is gone.
• Freight Cost % of Sales: Inbound and outbound freight divided by net sales. It rises when expedites and overflow moves creep in.

Here's how the two years played out.

In late 2024 the business is steady but loose. Line fill rate is 95.6%, on-time delivery 93.8% and perfect order rate 86.9%. Inventory turns 5.6 times a year, and cash-to-cash cycle time is 79 days: 65 days in stock, 44 waiting for customers to pay, less 30 days of supplier credit.

Then, in early 2025, with tariffs on imported goods in the news, the company buys ahead. Purchasing orders about six months of cover on the imported lines. It feels like the safe call.

By May 2025 the dashboard says otherwise. Days inventory outstanding has climbed from 65 to 87, turns are down to 4.2 and the cash-to-cash cycle has stretched to 105 days. Line fill rate hasn't improved. It has fallen, to 92.4% in April, because the cash went into imported lines while the fast-moving domestic parts ran short. Supplier OTIF drops to 76%, forecast accuracy to 60%, and freight reaches 5.7% of sales on rushed inbound loads and moves to overflow storage. Contractors start paying slower too, and days sales outstanding reaches 47.

So in June 2025 the company changes four things. Every part is ranked by sales and margin, and safety stock is set by rank, so the slow movers stop soaking up cash. Sales and purchasing meet weekly to compare the forecast with what actually sold, item by item. The top 25 suppliers get a monthly OTIF scorecard, and the best performers agree longer payment terms. And the distribution centers move to a 2pm same-day shipping cutoff with timed pick waves.

By October 2025, perfect order rate is 88.5%, just past APQC's cross-industry median of 88.0%. In March 2026 the cash-to-cash cycle drops below its 70-day target for the first time.

By September 2026 the board looks like a different business. Line fill rate is 97.5%, on-time delivery 96.2% and perfect order rate 91.3%. Orders arrive in 1.8 days instead of 3.2. Turns are up to 6.5, and the cash-to-cash cycle is 61 days, 44 days shorter than the peak. On about $61 million a year of cost of goods, cutting 31 days of inventory released roughly $5 million of cash, and six days off DSO brought in about another $1.4 million.

Two numbers didn't cooperate. Freight cost fell to 4.3% of sales by early 2026, then climbed back to 4.9% in the summer, with fewer expedites but higher carrier rates. And 61 days is still longer than APQC's 50-day median, because a distributor that holds stock for contractors will always carry more than many of the companies in a cross-industry sample.

List of Supply Chain KPIs

Only perfect order rate and cash-to-cash cycle time are compared with a published median here. The targets marked starting point are this example's, so replace them with your own once you have a year of history.

Why Supply Chain Dashboards Matter

Every part of a supply chain reports that its own corner is fine. The warehouse shipped what it had. Purchasing bought what the forecast said. Accounts chased what was overdue. The problem usually sits between them, and nobody sees it until a contractor's order comes up short or the cash does.

That's the case for putting all ten on one screen: most of them can be improved by quietly making another one worse.

On-time delivery can look excellent while freight cost climbs, because the trucks are being expedited to make it. Fill rate can look excellent while turns fall, because the warehouse is holding twice the stock it needs. Longer supplier terms shorten the cash-to-cash cycle, until supplier OTIF slips and the stockouts start. Read alone, each looks like progress. Read together, you can see what it cost.

With inventory costs and freight rates both still rising, the right stock matters more than more stock. A monthly look at fill rate, turns and the cash-to-cash cycle together is how you tell which you've got.