What gets measured improves—if you pick the right measures. After reshoring, retire offshoring KPIs that rewarded container turns and long-run efficiency. Replace them with metrics that value responsiveness, quality, and learning.

Start with time. Lead time (order to ship), engineering response time (defect to countermeasure), and changeover time define agility. Publish them weekly on the floor and discuss outliers in daily standups.

Quality must be predictive. Track first-pass yield, in-process PPM by cell, and escapes to customer. Tie alarms to SPC violations, not just end-of-line failures. When drift shows up, stop and solve.

OEE is necessary but not sufficient. Break out availability, performance, and quality so causes are visible. Combine with downtime codes that are short, consistent, and trained, so the data is trustworthy.

Inventory tells the truth. Measure days of supply by stage and turns by family. If buffers aren’t trending down after stabilization, something upstream is noisy—forecast, supplier performance, or changeovers.

Customer promise lines matter. DIFOT (delivered in full on time) and promise accuracy quantify reliability. Pair them with NPS/CSAT on orders with exceptions to see if communication protects trust when reality hiccups.

Financials should reflect flow. Cash-to-cash cycle time, expedite spend as % of sales, and warranty cost per unit show whether the system is healthy. Working capital released is the dividend of shorter loops.

Black Book Insights program audits find that plants with visible, few, and floor-owned KPIs outperform those with dozens of dashboards. Clarity beats complexity.

Measure to learn, not to punish. When teams see metrics as a map, they drive better than when they see them as a trap.