Managing logistics KPIs is an essential part of supply chain strategy for every company that ships freight.
This is true regardless of industry vertical — whether shipping food to grocery stores, raw materials to factories or packaged goods to retailers, shippers need to make sure their expectations are in line with standards.
To help shippers of all kinds better understand how their peers are setting and managing their logistics KPIs, we worked with an independent market research firm to survey 1,000 shippers and carriers.
You can get an aggregated view of all shippers’ insights in the full logistics KPI research study, but what about shippers in YOUR industry?
Breaking Down the Research by Industry Vertical
While every company’s supply chain is unique, getting a pulse check on how your fellow industry peers are running theirs can help you feel more confident in your own strategy.
In this post, you’ll get to compare and contrast the original research insights by industry verticals, specifically: food and beverage, retail, consumer packaged goods (CPG), healthcare, automotive, and manufacturing.
There are three sections:
- Logistics KPI management trends by industry
- Carrier relationship management by industry
- KPI benchmarks by industry
Want an even deeper dive into your industry’s insights?
We gathered a ton of interesting data in our logistics KPI research — too much to unpack in one study.
To make the insights digestible, we created a few pieces of content for you: the full research study, an industry breakdown (this post), and individual industry profiles (below).
Read this post, then check out a deep dive of your industry’s results:
Logistics KPI Management by Industry Vertical:
How Different Shippers Track & Leverage Their Transportation Data
First, let’s take a look at how shippers across industries are managing their logistics KPIs.
In this section, we’ll unpack who is using KPIs the most and who is the most KPI-savvy.
Which industry places the most value in logistics KPIs?
- Leading industry: Food and beverage
- Lagging industry: Retail
When asked if KPIs are an essential part of logistics management, almost every shipper believes they are (89%, to be exact) — but some industries place a slightly greater emphasis on their transportation data.
Food and beverage shippers were in the top spot, with 96% of respondents believing that KPIs are an essential part of logistics management, followed by CPG (90%) and manufacturing (89%).
Retailers were last at 83% of respondents.
Which industry references their logistics KPIs the most often?
- Leading industry: Automotive
- Lagging industry: Healthcare
Automotive shippers are referencing their KPIs the most, with 66% of respondents referencing daily, followed by food and beverage (59%) and CPG (57%).
Healthcare shippers were last, with only 26% referencing their KPIs daily.
Which industry is the most advanced at tracking logistics KPIs?
- Leading industry: Healthcare
- Lagging industry: Manufacturing
When asked to rate their ability at tracking supply chain metrics, healthcare was the most likely to rate themselves as advanced (58% of respondents) followed by automotive (51%) and retail (49%).
At 36% of respondents, manufacturers were the least likely to rate themselves as KPI tracking experts.
Furthermore, when asked to rate themselves at taking action on the data they have, healthcare shippers were also most likely to rate themselves as advanced (62% of respondents), while manufacturing was the least likely (32%).
Which industry is the most likely to deal with on-time in full (OTIF)?
- Most likely: Food and beverage
- Least likely: Manufacturing and automotive (tied)
On-time in full (OTIF) is a widespread delivery standard that many shippers — especially those delivering into retailers — have to deal with.
Unsurprisingly, food and beverage shippers (95% of respondents), healthcare shippers (92%), and CPG shippers (91%) were the most likely to deal with OTIF, while manufacturing and automotive (both 74%) were the least likely.
Which industry is the most likely to use AI in their logistics operations?
- Leading industry: Healthcare
- Lagging industry: Manufacturing
If there’s one topic that’s getting more buzz than anything else in supply chain, it’s AI.
We asked respondents if they’re using AI in their logistics operations — healthcare shippers were the most likely say that they are (74%) and manufacturing was the least likely (56%).
Carrier Management by Industry Vertical:
How Different Shippers Work with Their Freight Providers
The nature of a company’s products and customers will determine their supply chain strategy, and in turn, how they work with freight providers.
Let’s take a look at how carrier management and procurement vary by industry.
Which industry is the most likely to endorse shipping penalties?
- Most likely: Consumer packaged goods
- Least likely: Manufacturing
In an effort to encourage better carrier performance, some shippers will implement penalties (e.g. late fees).
When asked if they believe that shipping penalties are an effective way to improve carrier KPI performance, consumer packaged goods (CPG) shippers were the most likely to agree (94% of respondents), followed by healthcare at 92%.
The least likely to find shipping penalties effective were manufacturers at 79% of respondents.
Which industry has become the most demanding on their freight providers?
- Most demanding: Consumer packaged goods
- Least demanding: Healthcare
Increasing consumer demands for faster, cheaper shipping have placed a lot of pressure on shippers — both in B2B and B2C industries.
We asked how these pressures translated to carrier management. At 69% of respondents, consumer packaged goods shippers were the most likely to say they’ve become more demanding, while healthcare shippers (at 48%) were the least likely.
Which industry is the most cost-conscience?
- Most cost-conscience: Manufacturing
- Most service-oriented: Consumer packaged goods
When setting a procurement strategy, every shipper has to balance cost and service. While both are important, we asked shippers if they were more performance/service oriented, or if rates and pricing were the bigger concern.
A majority of shippers — regardless of industry — stated they more about service, but consumer packaged goods shippers (72% of respondents) and retailers (71%) were the clear standouts, while manufacturing (59%) was the most cost-conscience.
Logistics KPI Standards by Industry Verticals:
What Different Shippers Think Are Reasonable Performance Standards
We covered how different industries manage their KPIs and approach carrier procurement, now let’s see what they say are reasonable expectations for their freight providers.
Let’s find out if different types of shippers have different expectations for carriers.
Which industry is the most likely to want a set standard?
- Most likely: Healthcare
- Least likely: Retail
Most shippers — 87% to be exact — agreed that there should be set industry standards for logistics KPIs that everyone can agree on. But it wasn’t equal across every industry.
At 94% of respondents, healthcare shippers were the most likely to want a standard, followed by manufacturing at 92%.
Retailers, at 75%, were the least likely.
Which industry has the most demanding expectations for on-time delivery performance?
- Most demanding: Manufacturing
- Least demanding: Automotive
On-time performance
Every shipper wants 100% on-time deliveries, but realistically, some shipments are going to be late.
We asked shippers what they think is a reasonable standard for on-time delivery performance — 95% on-time was the most commonly chosen metric.
Breaking this down by industry, healthcare shippers had the highest percentage of respondents whose expectations exceeded the 95% standard (50%), followed by manufacturing (43%).
Retail was the most lenient, with 34% of respondents above the standard.
What is “on-time?”
We also asked shippers what they consider as “on-time” — the industry standard was on-time with a 30-minute appointment buffer.
For this aspect of on-time delivery, food and beverage shippers were the most demanding, with 51% of respondents’ expectations exceeding the standard (either a 15-minute buffer or exact appointment).
Consumer packaged goods shippers were the second-most demanding (48% exceeded the standard).
Combined score
Combining the percentage of respondents whose expectations exceeded the industry standard for both on-time performance and what counts as on-time, manufacturers were the most demanding, followed by food and beverage shippers, while automotive shippers were the most lenient.
Which industry holds themselves to the highest freight forecasting accuracy standard?
- Most demanding: Consumer packaged goods
- Least demanding: Automotive
Forecasting demand (i.e., freight volumes) is both an art and a science, and for carriers, it’s important that shippers are as accurate as possible.
When asked what they consider to be an acceptable degree of variance from a demand forecast, shippers were most likely to state that within 10% of their forecasted volume was acceptable.
Looking at industry-specific insights, consumer packaged goods shippers held themselves to the highest standard, with 19% exceeding the industry standard.
The least demanding was automotive, with 0% of respondents above the industry standard.
Which industry has the most demanding expectations for primary tender acceptance?
- Most demanding: Manufacturing
- Least demanding: Automotive
In the current freight market, tender acceptance has been somewhat taken for granted, but in tighter market conditions, whether or not your carriers honor their commitments makes a huge difference to shippers’ budgets.
When asked what they consider to be acceptable primary tender acceptance from their carriers, shippers’ most common answer was an 85% acceptance rate.
Looking at industry-specific insights, the most demanding were manufacturers, with 65% of respondents expecting an acceptance rate above the 85% industry standard. In second was food and beverage at 60%.
The most lenient was automotive, with 36% of respondents’ expectations above the industry standard.
Which industry has the shortest window for lead time?
- Shortest lead time: Retail and manufacturing (tied)
- Longest lead time: Automotive
We asked shippers what they consider as an acceptable amount of lead time — the industry standard was two days for truckload shipments.
Looking at industry-specific expectations, the most demanding industries were manufacturers and retailers — both had 25% of respondents with expectations higher than the industry standard (one day or less).
Automotive was the most lenient, with only 6% of respondents expecting less than two days.
Which industry has the longest expectations for payment terms?
- Longest payment terms: Automotive
- Shortest payment terms: Consumer packaged goods
We asked shippers what their standard payment terms are for freight — the most common response was within one week.
Looking at the industry specific expectations, automotive shippers tended to have the longest payment terms, with 56% of respondents above the one week industry standard.
The quickest to pay was consumer packaged goods shippers, with only 35% of respondents above the standard.
Get the Logistics KPI Profile for Your Industry
Now that you have a snapshot of how shippers in different industries stack up against each other, take a deeper dive into each specific industry.
Get the full insights for your direct shipper peers and see how you stack up.
And of course, you can access the full Logistics Professional’s Guide to KPIs research study.
Notes on the Data
While we can draw interesting, industry-specific insights from the research, there are a few things to consider:
- Different companies have different standards and approaches within each industry vertical — they are not monolithic.
- Though the data set includes insights from 500 shippers, when we look at industry-specific cuts, it also reduces the sample size, which in turn reduces the confidence level.
- Not every vertical has the same number of respondents (see demographic info above).