Accurate order selection maintains efficient warehouse operations, sustains customer service expectations, and boosts sales. This means that any bottleneck in warehouse order selectors’ workflows can reduce efficiency, make it harder for the business to scale operations, and waste time and resources on unnecessary customer service resolutions.
Covered in This Guide:
Learn the KPIs that warehouse managers track to gauge the success of their order selectors accurately, keep efficiency high, and impress customers, even in periods of high demand.
Why Are Order Selectors Important to Warehouse Operations?
Order selectors provide warehouses with the skills and labor needed to execute their fulfillment workflows. An order selector’s job is to retrieve items from inventory zones and deliver them to shipping areas. This requires a combination of physical and logistical skills, including:
- Reading orders with close attention to detail to verify that the correct SKUs, quantities, colors, and assembly parts are included in the order
- Operating lifting machinery, including forklifts, pallet jacks, and other PITs (powered industrial trucks)
- Using hand scanners and inventory management software to track stock levels and reorder times
Between the time an order is received until its final shipment, order selectors handle the readouts, routes, machinery, and software that determine the warehouse’s efficiency. Successful warehouse managers track the KPIs with the greatest impact on these order management duties.
Essential KPIs in Modern Warehouse Operations
Order selection KPIs are the heartbeat of successful fulfillment operations. Managers look for concrete, trackable metrics that provide direct readouts of order accuracy, cost efficiency, and more at each step of fulfillment. This allows them to address bottlenecks before they lead to lower margins and to make more strategic decisions as they scale their business or transition between periods of high and low seasonal demand.
Order Accuracy
The order accuracy rate is a clear indicator of operational successes or bottlenecks, depending on the results. High order accuracy correlates to fewer returns and higher satisfaction. To calculate it, managers can simply divide the number of accurately selected orders by the total number of selected orders. Multiply the result by 100 to convert the decimal into the accuracy ratio.
Order Cycle Time
The order cycle time measures the time between the warehouse receiving the order and the order being ready for shipment. Reducing order cycle time requires efficient order selection, clear travel routes between inventory zones, and strong communication between sales and fulfillment. The higher the cycle time, the more resources are spent on each order, and the longer customers will wait to receive their items.
Note: Not all orders can be weighted equally in cycle time calculations. Some orders are for small shipments to a single customer, while others are for large B2B fulfillment orders scheduled and prepared in advance. Measuring cycle times accurately requires taking daily or monthly averages and accounting for seasonal differences.
Fulfillment Cycle Time
While order cycle time tracks internal order processing time, fulfillment cycle time also includes the time it takes for the order to reach the customer. Both metrics are important to track, as high fulfillment cycle times can significantly impact customer satisfaction. However, warehouse managers need to determine whether the high cycle time is due to internal or external bottlenecks. If the fulfillment cycle time is high but the order cycle time is low, managers can assume that shipping carriers are causing the delay.
Cost Per Order
Order fulfillment cost is a significant KPI that many warehouse teams calculate incorrectly. The product cost and the cost of storing it in inventory do not factor into per-order fulfillment costs. When calculated correctly, the cost per order includes only the labor, shipping, and other expenses required to ship an item from the warehouse to the customer. It can be calculated by dividing total fulfillment costs for a given period by the number of orders the warehouse fulfilled.
Pro Tip: Tracking cost per order often helps businesses determine sales policies. For example, if the cost per order exceeds the item’s sale price, the business loses money on every order for that item. A minimum order requirement or a free shipping incentive can help rebalance their margins.
On-Time Shipping Rate
The on-time shipping rate is the percentage of orders that leave the warehouse on time, meeting their shipping deadlines. This KPI directly impacts both customer satisfaction and operational costs by measuring how effectively order selectors manage order times over a specific period. Missing required delivery dates can lead to penalties, contractual issues, and customer returns. By tracking the on-time shipping rate, which is simply the number of orders that meet the shipping deadline divided by the total number of orders, managers can fix picking, packing, or shipping bottlenecks before they continue.
Learn How Rapid-Response Teams Deliver Certified Order Selectors
At NVT Warehouse Staffing Division, our rapid-response warehouse order selectors can be ready to enhance your operations within 72 hours of hiring. Our teams recognize the challenges of modern fulfillment operations and provide experienced personnel to fulfill high-performing roles that deliver measurable improvements to their warehouses. We don’t require long-term contracts, allowing managers to improve their operations even when demand is high and local talent pools are low. Once a high-demand season passes, you can return your operations to normal levels without paying for idle labor in the off-season.
Contact us today to learn how our rapid-response order selectors can improve your warehouse KPIs and help you track performance in any season.