Practical guide · 5S and visual management
Manufacturing KPIs: key performance indicators by SQDCP, with formulas, targets and tier reviews
Short answer
Manufacturing KPIs (key performance indicators) are the few numbers a plant uses to judge whether it is working safely, making good parts, shipping on time, at the planned cost and with enough trained people. Each KPI has a formula, a target, an owner and a meeting where it is reviewed, and most plants group them under SQDCP: safety, quality, delivery, cost and people.
Common manufacturing KPIs are the recordable incident rate and near misses reported for safety, first pass yield and scrap rate for quality, on-time delivery and schedule attainment for delivery, OEE and cost per unit for cost, and absenteeism and cross-training cover for people. A line reviews five to eight of them at the start of every shift, the area each day and the plant each day or week. Every KPI needs a written formula, a target set from its own baseline, and a rule for what happens when it turns red.
Last reviewed:
What are KPIs in manufacturing?
A KPI in manufacturing is a measure the plant has chosen to steer by. It is tied to a goal, it has a target, one person owns it, and a named meeting looks at it on a fixed rhythm. When it goes off target, somebody acts. That last part is what turns a number into a KPI.
KPI vs metric
Every KPI is a metric, but most metrics are not KPIs. A plant can count hundreds of things: spindle hours, pallets moved, calls to maintenance. A metric becomes a key performance indicator when it is one of the few numbers a team reviews against a target to decide what to do today. A line that tracks 40 numbers at its huddle has no KPIs, only a report.
Leading and lagging KPIs
A lagging KPI reports a result after the fact: injuries, customer complaints, late orders, cost per unit. A leading KPI measures something that comes before the result and that the team can change this week: near misses reported, first pass yield at the station, schedule attainment by the hour. Lagging KPIs tell the plant whether it got there. Leading KPIs give the line something to act on before the result is in. A good set has both, paired.
| Category | Lagging KPI (the result) | Leading KPI (what drives it) |
|---|---|---|
| Safety | Total recordable incident rate (TRIR) | Near misses reported, and safety actions closed on time |
| Quality | Customer complaints and returned parts per million | First pass yield at each station, and layered audit pass rate |
| Delivery | On-time delivery to the customer | Schedule attainment each shift, and hour-by-hour output against plan |
| Cost | Cost per unit | OEE, unplanned downtime and scrap rate on the line |
| People | Staff turnover | Absenteeism, cross-training cover and training plan completion |
The leading KPI sits at the line huddle; the lagging one sits at the plant review. When the leading KPIs stay green and the lagging one does not move, the pairing is wrong.
Read more on the pairing in leading and lagging indicators, and on why near misses are the most useful early signal in the near miss reporting guide.
Manufacturing KPIs by SQDCP: safety, quality, delivery, cost and people
SQDCP is the most common way to group manufacturing KPIs, and it is the order most tier boards use: safety first, because no output target is worth an injury. You will also see SQDC (without people), SQCDP (the same letters, cost before delivery) and SQDCM, where M is morale. The letters matter less than the habit of covering all five every day.
The five SQDCP categories
- SafetyDid anyone get hurt, or nearly hurt, and are the hazards found being fixed?
- QualityAre we making good parts first time, and is anything bad reaching the customer?
- DeliveryDid we make what was planned, and did the customer get it on the promised date?
- CostAre the machines, the material and the hours turning into good output?
- PeopleDo we have enough trained people on every shift, and are they staying?
How many KPIs? Five to eight at a line huddle, one or two per letter. An area meeting can carry a few more, because it compares lines. The plant review adds the slow, lagging KPIs such as turnover and inventory turns. If a KPI has not led to an action in a month, take it off the board. The SQCDP tier board gives each letter its own column, and the SQDC board software page covers running one on a screen.
Safety KPIs
Safety KPIs come first on every board. The two injury rates are lagging and slow: a plant of 200 people may go months between recordable cases, so a monthly rate jumps around. Pair them with leading KPIs the line can move this week.
| KPI | Formula | Worked number (illustrative) | Work it out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total recordable incident rate (TRIR) | Recordable cases x 200,000 / hours worked | 3 cases in 412,000 hours over 12 months: 3 x 200,000 / 412,000 = 1.46 | TRIR and DART calculator |
| DART rate | Days away, restricted or transferred cases x 200,000 / hours worked | 2 DART cases in the same 412,000 hours: 400,000 / 412,000 = 0.97 | TRIR and DART calculator |
| Near misses reported | Near-miss reports in the period, often per 100 people | 14 reports in a week from 200 people: 14 / 200 x 100 = 7 per 100 people | Near miss reporting guide |
| Safety actions closed on time | Actions closed by their due date / actions due in the period | 18 of 20 due this month closed on time: 90% | Count from the safety action log |
The 200,000 in both rates comes from OSHA's recordkeeping rule (29 CFR 1904): it is 100 full-time workers at 40 hours a week for 50 weeks, so the rate reads as cases per 100 workers a year. Check: 1.46 x 412,000 / 200,000 = 3.0 cases.
Be careful with a target of zero on reported events. A near-miss count that is expected to fall teaches people to stop reporting. Early on, more near-miss reports is good news: it means hazards are being seen before someone is hurt. Set a floor for reports, not a ceiling, and judge the team on how fast the hazards behind them are closed.
Quality KPIs
Plant-wide, four quality KPIs cover most of what a plant manager needs: one for the line, one for loss, one for the customer and one for money. Quality engineers track more, by part and by defect.
| KPI | Formula | Worked number (illustrative) | Work it out |
|---|---|---|---|
| First pass yield (FPY) | Units good the first time / units started | 1,164 good first time of 1,200 started: 97.0% | First pass yield calculator |
| Scrap rate | Units scrapped / units made | 30 scrapped of 1,200 made: 2.5% | Scrap rate calculator |
| Customer PPM | Parts the customer rejected x 1,000,000 / parts shipped | 18 rejected of 240,000 shipped: 75 PPM | DPMO calculator for defects per opportunity |
| Cost of poor quality (COPQ) | Scrap, rework, warranty and other failure costs / revenue | $96,000 of failure cost on $4,800,000 revenue: 2.0% | COPQ calculator |
Check the other way: 97.0% x 1,200 = 1,164; 2.5% x 1,200 = 30; 75 x 240,000 / 1,000,000 = 18.
Keep the plant board to these four and let the quality team carry the detail. The quality metrics guide covers every quality measure with its formula and target, including yield and rolled throughput yield, and the CAPA guide covers how to tell whether corrective action is working.
Delivery KPIs
Delivery KPIs answer two questions. Did the line make what the plan asked for? Did the customer get it when promised? The first is leading and belongs at the line; the second is lagging and belongs at the plant review.
| KPI | Formula | Worked number (illustrative) | Work it out |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-time delivery (OTD) | Order lines shipped on or before the promise date / order lines due | 462 of 480 lines on time: 96.3% | Count from shipping records; the manufacturing KPI dashboard template trends it |
| Schedule attainment | Sum of each item's output, capped at its plan / total planned | Plan A 400, B 300, C 300; made A 450, B 260, C 300: (400 + 260 + 300) / 1,000 = 96% | Hour-by-hour production board for the shift view |
| Manufacturing lead time | Work in process / throughput per day (Little's Law) | 1,800 units in WIP / 600 units a day = 3 days | Lead time calculator |
| Takt time against cycle time | Takt = available time / demand; compare each station's cycle time with it | 54,000 seconds available / 1,200 units = 45 seconds per unit | Takt time calculator and cycle time calculator |
Why cap at plan: without the cap the same day reads (450 + 260 + 300) / 1,000 = 101%, and the 40 missing units of B are hidden by 50 extra units of A that nobody ordered.
Schedule attainment is the delivery KPI a line can act on during the shift, especially when it is tracked hour by hour against the plan. On-time delivery is what the customer feels, and it moves days later. If OTD is red while schedule attainment is green, the plan itself is wrong: the schedule is not asking for what the customer needs.
Cost and productivity KPIs
Cost KPIs track how well the machines, material and hours turn into good output. The line sees OEE and downtime; finance and the plant manager see cost per unit and inventory.
| KPI | Formula | Worked number (illustrative) | Work it out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) | Availability x performance x quality | 420 planned minutes, 47 down, 400 made at an ideal 0.8 minutes, 388 good: 88.8% x 85.8% x 97.0% = 73.9% | OEE calculator |
| Unplanned downtime | Unplanned stop minutes / planned production minutes | 47 / 420 = 11.2% of planned time | Downtime cost calculator puts a cost on it |
| Cost per unit | Total manufacturing cost / units made | $412,000 / 52,000 units = $7.92 | Total manufacturing cost calculator |
| Inventory turns | Cost of goods sold / average inventory | $9,600,000 / $1,200,000 = 8 turns, or 365 / 8 = 45.6 days on hand | Inventory turnover calculator |
| MTBF and MTTR | Operating hours / failures; repair hours / failures | 600 hours, 8 failures, 12 repair hours: MTBF 75 hours, MTTR 1.5 hours | MTBF and MTTR calculator |
| Units per labor hour | Good units / paid labor hours | 9,600 good units / 1,280 hours = 7.5 | OLE calculator splits it into availability, performance and quality |
Check OEE the short way: good units x ideal cycle time / planned time = 388 x 0.8 / 420 = 310.4 / 420 = 73.9%, the same as the three factors multiplied.
OEE is a machine KPI, so set it per machine or per line, never as one plant number typed in by hand. The OEE calculation guide works it through by hand. For maintenance-specific measures such as planned maintenance percentage and PM compliance, see the preventive maintenance guide and the maintenance KPI tracker.
People KPIs
People KPIs are the ones plants most often leave off the board, and they explain many of the reds in the other four letters. A shift short of two trained operators shows up as late output and scrap before it shows up anywhere else.
| KPI | Formula | Worked number (illustrative) | Work it out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Absenteeism | Hours absent / hours scheduled | 640 of 16,000 scheduled hours: 4.0% | Absenteeism tracker |
| Cross-training cover | Critical jobs with enough qualified people / critical jobs | 14 of 18 critical jobs have three or more qualified people: 77.8% | Skills matrix template |
| Overtime rate | Overtime hours / regular hours | 1,120 / 16,000 = 7.0% | Payroll or timekeeping records |
| Staff turnover | Leavers in 12 months / average headcount | 22 leavers / 200 average headcount = 11% | HR records, reviewed monthly |
| Ideas implemented per person | Ideas implemented in 12 months / average headcount | 260 / 200 = 1.3 ideas per person a year | Kaizen guide; the kaizen savings calculator values them |
Check: 4.0% x 16,000 = 640 hours; 18 x 77.8% = 14 jobs; 11% x 200 = 22 leavers.
Cross-training cover is the people KPI with the most direct link to output. Decide how many qualified people each critical job needs across all shifts (three is a common rule, so one can be absent and one on holiday), then count the jobs that meet it. The training matrix template holds the plan to close the gaps.
KPIs for a production manager, a supervisor and a plant manager
The same SQDCP set is cut differently for each role. Each person owns the KPIs they can move inside their own review cycle, and watches the rest.
| Role | KPIs they own | How often they review them |
|---|---|---|
| Team leader | Hour-by-hour output against plan, first pass yield at the station, downtime by reason, safety concerns raised, people present against needed | Every hour on the board, and at the start of each shift |
| Supervisor | Schedule attainment, scrap rate, near misses reported, absenteeism, open actions from the line huddles | Every shift, and at the daily area meeting |
| Production manager | OEE by line, schedule attainment, unplanned downtime, overtime rate, cross-training cover, units per labor hour | Daily at the area or plant meeting, with a weekly trend |
| Quality manager | Customer PPM and complaints, first pass yield by line, cost of poor quality, open CAPAs | Daily for escapes, weekly and monthly for trends |
| Maintenance manager | Unplanned downtime, MTBF and MTTR on critical assets, PM compliance | Daily for breakdowns, weekly for trends |
| Plant manager | TRIR and DART, on-time delivery, cost per unit, inventory turns, staff turnover, and the trend of every line's SQDCP | Daily or weekly at the plant meeting, monthly against the year's goals |
A production manager's KPIs sit between the line and the plant: mostly leading, reviewed daily, and broken down by line so the weak one is obvious. The production manager leader standard work template puts the reviews into the manager's day.
Tiered KPI review: line, area and plant
KPIs work when each one is reviewed by the people who can act on it, at a pace that matches how fast it moves. Most plants do this with tiered meetings: short stand-ups at a board, in a fixed order, so a problem raised at the line reaches the plant manager the same day.
Tiered KPI review
- Plant leadershipMonthly reviewTrends against the year's goals
- Plant manager and department headsTier 3, every day or weekDelivery, injury rates, cost per unit
- Supervisor or area managerTier 2, every dayLines side by side, escalations
- Team leader and operatorsTier 1, every shiftLast shift against target, hour by hour
| Tier | Who | When | KPIs on the board |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1: line or cell | Team leader and the operators | Start of every shift, 10 minutes | Last shift's SQDCP against target, hour-by-hour output, safety concerns, downtime by reason, who is here today |
| Tier 2: area | Supervisor or area manager, team leaders, quality and maintenance | Every day, 15 minutes, after tier 1 | Each line's SQDCP side by side, schedule attainment, scrap, near misses, staffing gaps, problems the lines could not solve |
| Tier 3: plant | Plant manager and department heads | Every day or every week, 20 to 30 minutes | On-time delivery, TRIR and DART, customer PPM, cost per unit, OEE trend by line, escalations from tier 2 |
| Monthly review | Plant leadership | Once a month | Trends against the year's goals, cost of poor quality, inventory turns, turnover, target changes |
The tier names differ between companies; some add a tier 4 for the business unit. What matters is the order: tier 1 meets first, so tier 2 hears about today's problems the same morning.
A red KPI, from the line to the plant
- 1Tier 1
A KPI turns red at the line huddle
- 2Decision
Can the line fix it this shift?
- Yes:
- owner and action on the board
- No:
- raise it to tier 2 the same day
- 3DecisionTier 2
Can the area fix it?
- Yes:
- the supervisor owns the action
- No:
- raise it to tier 3
- 4Tier 3
The plant decides and supports
- 5Next huddle
The answer goes back down
The rule that makes the tiers work is escalation. A red KPI gets an owner and an action at the tier that found it. If that tier cannot fix it within its own authority or its own shift, it goes up one tier the same day, and the answer comes back down to the next huddle. The tier boards post covers the structure in more depth, and the daily huddle agenda and tier 2 meeting agenda give each meeting its running order.
Once a month, the plant checks its KPIs against the year's goals. A hoshin bowling chart shows each goal's target and actual by month, so a slipping goal is seen within one review rather than at year end.
A worked example: one line's KPI board for a week
This example is illustrative, not from a real plant. An assembly line runs two shifts a day for five days: 10 shifts. Each shift has 420 planned production minutes after breaks. The ideal cycle time is 0.36 minutes a unit. The week's plan is 9,000 units. The line team is 25 people scheduled for 40 hours each.
| Count | Value |
|---|---|
| Planned production time | 10 shifts x 420 minutes = 4,200 minutes |
| Unplanned downtime | 546 minutes |
| Units started | 9,000 |
| Good first time | 8,730 |
| Reworked and passed | 153 |
| Scrapped | 117 |
| Order lines due / shipped on time | 46 / 44 |
| Recordable injuries / near misses reported | 0 / 3 |
| Hours scheduled / hours absent | 1,000 / 40 |
| Critical stations / with three or more trained people | 9 / 7 |
Check the units: 8,730 good first time + 153 reworked + 117 scrapped = 9,000 started.
| KPI | Working | Result | Target | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S: Recordable injuries | Count | 0 | 0 | Green |
| S: Near misses reported | Count | 3 | At least 4 | Amber |
| Q: First pass yield | 8,730 / 9,000 | 97.0% | 97.5% or more | Amber |
| Q: Scrap rate | 117 / 9,000 | 1.3% | 1.5% or less | Green |
| D: Schedule attainment | (8,730 + 153) / 9,000 | 98.7% | 98% or more | Green |
| D: On-time delivery | 44 / 46 | 95.7% | 98% or more | Red |
| C: OEE | 87.0% x 88.7% x 97.0% | 74.8% | 72% or more | Green |
| C: Unplanned downtime | 546 / 4,200 | 13.0% | 11.4% or less (480 minutes) | Red |
| P: Absenteeism | 40 / 1,000 | 4.0% | 3.5% or less | Red |
| P: Cross-training cover | 7 / 9 | 77.8% | 8 of 9 stations | Amber |
OEE factors: availability (4,200 minus 546) / 4,200 = 3,654 / 4,200 = 87.0%; performance 9,000 x 0.36 / 3,654 = 3,240 / 3,654 = 88.7%; quality 8,730 / 9,000 = 97.0%. Check the short way: 8,730 x 0.36 / 4,200 = 3,142.8 / 4,200 = 74.8%. Units per labor hour: 8,883 good units (first time plus reworked) / 960 hours worked = 9.25.
Three reds and three ambers out of ten. Read them together and the story is one problem, not six. Most of the 546 downtime minutes came on Wednesday, when a feeder jammed repeatedly on the night shift. That same shift was two people short, so the feeder was run by an operator not yet trained on it, which also explains the amber first pass yield. The two late order lines were Wednesday's. OEE stayed green because the other four days ran well, which is why a weekly OEE number should never be read without the downtime Pareto beside it.
What the huddle did: the supervisor took the feeder jam as an action with maintenance, due Friday. The night shift team leader raised the training gap to tier 2, where the production manager moved one trained operator from a line with spare cover. The near-miss shortfall went back to the team: one operator mentioned a slip near the feeder that nobody had written up, and it became the fourth report.
How to set KPI targets
A target without a baseline is a guess. Published averages from other plants are made on different products, with different definitions, so they make poor targets. Set each one from your own numbers:
- 1
Measure the baseline
Use at least 13 weeks of data, with the formula you will use from now on. Take the median, so one bad week does not set the bar.
- 2
Work out what the business needs
The customer's delivery terms, the budget's cost per unit, the year's goals. The gap between the baseline and the need is the size of the job.
- 3
Step the target
Close the gap in quarterly steps rather than one jump, so the line can hit the first step and believe the next.
- 4
Set the colours and the direction
Write down whether up or down is good, and where green ends and red starts. An amber band stops a number flipping red on noise.
- 5
Review each quarter
Raise a target the line hits every week with no effort. Lower one only with a reason written on the definition card.
| Quarter | Target | Green | Amber | Red |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline (13-week median) | 2.4% | |||
| Q1 | 2.2% | 2.2% or less | 2.3% to 2.4% | Above 2.4% |
| Q2 | 2.0% | 2.0% or less | 2.1% to 2.2% | Above 2.2% |
| Q3 | 1.8% | 1.8% or less | 1.9% to 2.0% | Above 2.0% |
| Q4 | 1.6% | 1.6% or less | 1.7% to 1.8% | Above 1.8% |
Each step is 0.2 points: (2.4 minus 1.6) / 4 = 0.2. At 450,000 units a year and a scrap cost of $6.50 a unit, the 0.8-point cut is 450,000 x 0.008 = 3,600 units, or 3,600 x $6.50 = $23,400 a year. The scrap rate calculator does the same sum.
The amber band here is the previous quarter's target, so a line that slips back to last quarter's level sees amber, and one that slips further sees red. Written as a goal, each step should pass the SMART goals test: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
How to set up manufacturing KPIs in six steps
Start with one line, not the whole plant. A few weeks on one board will change most of the definitions, and it is cheaper to change them on one line than on twenty.
Setting up manufacturing KPIs in six steps
- 1
Start from the plant's goals
- 2SQDCP
Pick five to eight KPIs per tier
- 3
Write a definition card for each
- 4
Map each KPI to its data
- 5
Run the line huddle on it
- 6
Roll up, then copy
Then review the targets each quarter
- 1
Start from the plant's goals
List the year's goals for safety, quality, delivery, cost and people. Every KPI on a board should trace back to one of them.
- 2
Pick five to eight KPIs per tier
One or two per SQDCP letter. At the line, choose leading KPIs the team can move inside a shift; leave the slow lagging ones for the plant review.
- 3
Write a definition card for each
Formula, unit, data source, who enters it, owner, target, colours, direction and the meeting that reviews it. Two lines that calculate the same KPI differently will argue about the number instead of the problem.
- 4
Map each KPI to its data
Decide where each number comes from: a system, a spreadsheet, or a count at the line. Where no source exists, start by hand on the board rather than wait for one.
- 5
Run the line huddle on it
Review the board at the start of every shift for two or three weeks. Every red gets an owner and a due date, and open actions are the first item at the next huddle.
- 6
Roll up, then copy
Add the area and plant views built from the same definitions, then copy the board to the next line. Review the targets each quarter.
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Why we track it | Shows each shift whether the line made what the plan asked for, before it becomes a late order |
| Formula | Sum of each item's good output, capped at its plan / total planned units |
| Unit and direction | Percent; higher is better |
| Data source | Hour-by-hour board at the line, entered by the team leader at the end of each hour |
| Owner | The line's supervisor |
| Target and colours | Green 98% or more, amber 95% to 97.9%, red below 95% |
| Reviewed at | Tier 1 every shift, tier 2 daily by line, tier 3 weekly as a trend |
Illustrative. The same card format works for every KPI; keep the cards in one place so every line uses the same definitions.
Common mistakes with manufacturing KPIs
- Too many KPIs at the line. Twenty numbers on a huddle board means none gets an action. Keep five to eight and move the rest to a report.
- Averaging percentages. Line A runs 420 planned minutes at 80% OEE, line B 120 minutes at 50%. The average says 65%; built from the inputs it is (0.80 x 420 + 0.50 x 120) / 540 = 396 / 540 = 73.3%. Roll ratio KPIs up from their counts and minutes.
- Only lagging KPIs. A board of last month's injury rate and cost per unit gives the line nothing to change today.
- A KPI nobody at that tier can move. If the line cannot affect it within a shift, it belongs at a higher tier.
- Red with no action. A number that stays red for weeks with no owner teaches everyone to ignore the board.
- Targets copied from somewhere else. Set them from your own baseline and step them.
- Definitions that change quietly. If scrap starts excluding start-up parts, the trend breaks. Write the change on the card and mark the date on the chart.
- Targets that punish reporting. A zero target on near misses or first aid cases gets you fewer reports, not fewer hazards.
Tracking KPIs on a board, in Excel or in software
A whiteboard and a marker are enough to start. The SQCDP tier board, the hour-by-hour production board and the safety cross calendar cover the line. The free manufacturing KPI dashboard template in Excel holds the definitions, targets and weekly trend, and the OEE tracking sheet logs OEE by shift. Paper and Excel strain when several shifts and lines enter numbers, every red needs an owned action that carries from huddle to huddle, and the plant view has to be built from the line numbers rather than typed again.
In LeanSuite, each KPI is set up once with its target, Red-Amber-Green ranges and whether up or down is good. Form and checklist results show on dashboards right away, and values can also come from Excel on SharePoint or OneDrive, Google Sheets or a CSV upload. A KPI is flagged as soon as new data crosses a limit and the team starts an action plan from it, and department KPIs roll up to the plant. See KPI dashboards and tiered meetings, or the comparison of manufacturing KPI dashboard software if you are choosing a tool.
KPI dashboards
Track manufacturing KPIs in LeanSuite
Every form, checklist and audit your team submits shows up on dashboards right away.
Go deeper
This page is the short version. These guides cover each part in full.
- Tier Boards: Cascading Daily Management ExplainedThe tier structure in depth: what each level's board shows and how problems move up and decisions come down.
- Production Boards: Real-Time Shop Floor CommunicationThe hour-by-hour and production boards that carry the line's delivery KPIs through the shift.
- Maintenance KPIs: What to Measure and WhyThe maintenance KPIs behind the cost letter: MTBF, MTTR, planned maintenance percentage and backlog.
- First Pass Yield: Definition, Calculation, and ImprovementFirst pass yield and rolled throughput yield in depth, and how to raise them.
- 7 Ways to Improve Production Efficiency in ManufacturingWhat to do once the cost and delivery KPIs show where the line loses time.
- How to Set SMART Goals for Manufacturing ExcellenceWriting the targets behind each KPI so they are specific, measurable and dated.
- Hoshin Kanri Review Cycles: Monthly and QuarterlyHow the monthly and quarterly reviews check the plant's KPIs against the year's goals.
All our articles on this subject are in the 5s and visual management topic.
Free templates and tools
- SQCDP tier boardThe daily tier-meeting board: one panel per pillar, green or red for every day of the month, the KPIs behind the colour and the actions from each red.
- Hoshin bowling chartThe monthly scorecard: planned and actual value for each KPI, month by month, green when the actual meets the plan.
- Manufacturing KPI dashboard templateWeekly plant numbers in, 14 KPIs out: OEE and its parts, first pass yield, scrap, on-time delivery, recordable rate, cost and absence, each against a target.
- Hour-by-hour production boardHourly plan against actual with running totals and the reason for each miss, plus a shift summary by reason.
- Daily huddle agendaA 15-minute start-of-shift stand-up in six timed blocks, with yesterday's SQCDP results, today's plan, actions and escalations.
- Tier 2 meeting agenda and escalation sheetA 15-minute tier 2 agenda in ten timed blocks, fixed roles and rules, escalation triggers with time limits, and a log that ages every escalation and sends the answer back down.
- Safety cross calendarA month drawn as the green cross, colored each day by the most serious safety event, with totals and days since the last injury.
- OEE tracking sheetOne row per shift for a week. The Excel version works out availability, performance, quality and OEE and charts the week.
- Maintenance KPI trackerMTBF, MTTR, availability and PM compliance per asset and month, plant figures from the totals, planned maintenance % and backlog in weeks.
- Absenteeism tracker templateA monthly attendance grid with codes, absence rate by person and team, and an optional Bradford factor.
- Skills matrix templatePeople by tasks on a 0 to 4 scale, coverage and gaps per task and shift, and a training plan that closes them.
- Production manager leader standard work templateA production or value stream manager's routine by day, week and month, with an escalation log and a weekly review.
- OEE calculatorOverall equipment effectiveness from shift time, downtime, ideal cycle time and part counts.
- TRIR and DART rate calculatorOSHA recordable and DART incident rates from your 300A case counts and hours, and what one more case does to them.
- First pass yield (FPY) calculatorFirst pass yield at each step and rolled throughput yield (RTY) across the whole process.
- Scrap rate calculatorScrap rate, the cost of scrap per period and per year, and what reaching a target rate would save.
- Lead time calculatorManufacturing lead time from WIP and throughput (Little's Law), and the share of it that adds value.
- Total manufacturing cost calculatorTotal manufacturing cost, cost of goods manufactured, cost per unit and the overhead rate from materials, labor and overhead.
- Inventory turnover and days on hand calculatorHow many times stock turns over in a period and how many days of it you hold, from COGS and average inventory.
- MTBF and MTTR calculatorMean time between failures, mean time to repair and availability from operating time, failures and repair time.
- Downtime cost calculatorWhat an hour, an event and a year of unplanned downtime cost, from lost output, idle labour, scrap and overtime.
- Overall labor effectiveness (OLE) calculatorHow well paid labor hours turn into good output: availability, performance and quality of the crew.
- Cost of poor quality (COPQ) calculatorTotal COPQ and cost of quality, and each as a share of revenue, from the four quality cost categories.
- Takt time calculatorThe pace a line must hit to meet customer demand, from shift time, breaks and daily demand.
Key terms
- KPI dashboard
- SQDCM
- Leading and lagging indicators
- Tiered meetings
- Tier board
- Hour-by-hour board
- Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)
- First pass yield (FPY)
- Scrap rate
- On-time delivery (OTD)
- Total recordable incident rate (TRIR)
- DART rate
- Mean time between failures (MTBF)
- Inventory turnover
- Bowling chart
Doing this in LeanSuite
KPI Dashboards
Turns raw shop floor data into dashboards anyone can read, so everyone from operators to the plant manager can act on performance.
See KPI DashboardsTiered Meetings
Puts daily huddles on live, cascaded dashboards, so the shop floor and the top floor see the same numbers and act on them at every tier.
See Tiered MeetingsLoss & Cost Management
Shows where your plant loses money, puts a cost on each loss and gives you the tools to remove it.
See Loss & Cost Management
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The SQCDP tier board is one of the 30 ready-made boards in Lean Studio, LeanSuite's whiteboard. Try the interactive demo in your browser with sample data, or pilot LeanSuite on your own lines for 90 days, with the setup done by our team.
What Lean Studio isFAQ
Questions about manufacturing KPIs
Manufacturing KPIs (key performance indicators) are the few measures a plant steers by, each with a formula, a target, an owner and a meeting that reviews it. Most plants group them under SQDCP: safety, quality, delivery, cost and people. Examples are the recordable incident rate, first pass yield, on-time delivery, OEE and absenteeism.
There is no single official list, but a balanced set of five takes one KPI from each SQDCP category: a safety KPI such as the recordable incident rate or near misses reported, first pass yield for quality, on-time delivery or schedule attainment for delivery, OEE or cost per unit for cost, and absenteeism or cross-training cover for people.
Any number a plant measures is a metric. A KPI is one of the few metrics chosen to steer by: it is tied to a goal, has a target and an owner, and is reviewed on a fixed rhythm so that someone acts when it goes off target. Every KPI is a metric, but most metrics are not KPIs.
A production manager usually owns OEE by line, schedule attainment, unplanned downtime, overtime rate, cross-training cover and units per labor hour, reviewed daily with a weekly trend. They also watch first pass yield, near misses and on-time delivery, which other roles own, because problems in those show up in production first.
A lagging KPI reports a result after it has happened, such as injuries, customer complaints or cost per unit. A leading KPI measures something that comes before the result and that the team can change now, such as near misses reported, first pass yield at the station or schedule attainment by the hour. A good set pairs each lagging KPI with a leading one.
Five to eight at each line huddle, one or two per SQDCP category, chosen so the team can move them within a shift. An area meeting can carry a few more to compare lines, and the plant review adds slower lagging KPIs such as turnover and inventory turns. Remove any KPI that has not led to an action in a month.
Measure a baseline over at least 13 weeks with the formula you will keep using, compare it with what the customer and the budget need, then close the gap in quarterly steps. Write down whether up or down is good and where green, amber and red start, and review the targets each quarter.
SQDCP stands for safety, quality, delivery, cost and people, the five categories most plants use to group their KPIs on tier boards. Safety comes first. Variants include SQDC without people, SQCDP with cost before delivery, and SQDCM, where M stands for morale.
Match the review to how fast the KPI moves and who can act on it. Line KPIs are reviewed at the start of every shift, area KPIs every day, plant KPIs every day or every week, and the year's goals once a month. A problem the line cannot solve should reach the next tier the same day.
Related guides and tools
- Manufacturing KPI dashboard: what a dashboard should show and do, and a buyer's checklist
- Free manufacturing KPI dashboard template in Excel: definitions, targets and trends
- How to calculate OEE by hand, with a worked example
- Quality metrics: formulas, worked numbers and targets for FPY, DPMO, COPQ and PPM
- Near miss reporting: the leading safety KPI and how to raise the count
- SQDC board software: running the tier board on a screen
- Manufacturing KPI dashboard: one board the floor and leadership both read
More method guides
- The 6 Ms of production
- Poka-yoke
- Model area 90-day plans
- Moving from Excel to one system
- Reducing machine downtime: a worked month
- Andon
- Cycle time vs lead time, worked through
- Root cause analysis
- How many operators a line needs
- Reducing scrap and rework: a worked month
- Unsafe acts and unsafe conditions
- Just culture
- Stop-work authority
- Material review board (MRB)
- Nonconformance and NCRs
- Problem solving methods
- Quad chart
- OEE calculation
- Quality assurance vs quality control
- SOP meaning and format
- Job hazard analysis
- Near miss reporting
- Fishbone diagram
- Pareto chart
- Histogram
- Control chart
- What is a gemba walk
- What is lead time
- What is operational excellence
- How to improve product quality
- Preventive vs predictive maintenance
- Kanban
- FMEA
- PDSA cycle
- Safety moments
- Just-in-time manufacturing
- Kaizen
- 5S
- Total quality management (TQM)
- CAPA (corrective and preventive action)
- Layered process audit (LPA)
- Lean tools
- Lockout tagout (LOTO)
- A3 problem solving
- Preventive maintenance
- APQP
- High reliability organization (HRO)
- Quality metrics
- Practical problem solving
- CMMS
- Risk assessment
- Production efficiency
- Total productive maintenance (TPM)
- Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM)
Or browse the topics, the full library and the lean glossary.
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