Warehouse metrics
On time is measured against the truck,not the shift clock.
On-time shipment records whether an order left the building before the cut-off it was promised to a carrier or a customer — not whether the shift that built it finished on schedule. WareBee reads pick pace and dock readiness against the truck's actual departure window for every wave in flight, so a shipment is measured against the deadline that mattered, not the shift clock everyone defaults to watching.
See what causes a missed cut-off
What it is
Measured against the truck, not the shift.
On WareBee's digital twin, on-time shipment is a per-order, per-wave measure: did the order clear the dock before the cut-off it owed a carrier or a customer, timestamped from pick start through pack, stage and trailer departure. Every stage is logged as an event as it happens, so the figure for a wave is built from what actually happened at each step rather than reconstructed afterwards from a single pass or fail flag at the end of the shift.
The number moves with what happens well before the cut-off arrives, not at it. Pick pace against the remaining order count, dock-door availability against the truck schedule, how a wave was batched and sequenced, and where in the queue a shipment's dock assignment landed all shift it before the deadline is even close. A wave that looks fine against an eight-hour shift can already be behind the trailer leaving mid-morning, and the twin reads the deadline that actually applies rather than the one everyone defaults to.
Scheduled linehaul and rolling carrier pickups run on entirely different clocks: a site with a handful of departures a day owes fewer, harder deadlines than one juggling carrier pickups that arrive throughout the shift, and treating them the same would flatten a real difference into a fiction. WareBee matches your operation to a peer set on order profile, SKU count and footprint before it scores a single wave, so what counts as tight for you is read against sites that actually carry your deadline pressure.
What moves this number
What decides whether a shipment beats its cut-off.
Each one is measured on your digital twin from data you already generate, so you can see which is doing the work on a given wave before the next cut-off arrives.
Pick pace against the remaining order count
A wave that's comfortable against the shift clock can already be behind the trailer it's actually racing.
The twin compares how fast lines are clearing against how many are still open, for every wave in flight, rather than waiting for a shift total. A pace that's drifting behind what the truck schedule needs surfaces while pickers can still be reallocated to the backlog.
Dock-door availability against the truck schedule
A shipment ready to load still slips if the door it needs is occupied by someone else's trailer.
Door assignment weighs what's already staged in front of each door and how long its current trailer needs to clear, not just which doors show free on the board. A door about to be blocked doesn't get handed to a shipment racing its own cut-off.
How a wave was batched and sequenced
A wave sized to a target count rather than the time left is the one most likely to miss its window.
Wave release times are set from actual pick rates and equipment cycle times for that zone rather than a fixed interval on a clock, and batch size can shrink as a cut-off approaches to fit what's still realistically achievable. A run held to its original target instead of the runway left behind it is the one that slips.
Exceptions surfacing late in the wave
A short pick or a damaged case found at pack-out leaves no time to route around it.
Exception handling checked continuously rather than swept up at the end of a wave means the same short pick or damaged case surfaces while there's still a wave left to recover, not at the pack bench with the trailer already waiting outside.
Catch a shipment before it's already behind schedule.
Once your on-time shipment figure is read against a peer set matched on order profile, SKU count and footprint, the next question is which waves are trending toward a miss right now, not which ones missed last week. WareBee runs pick pace and dock availability against the truck schedule continuously, so a wave drifting behind the deadline that matters flags itself hours out, while pickers can still be reallocated or the batch resized to fit what's left.
From there it's a scheduling change, not a guess. A different dock assignment, a resized batch or a re-sequenced wave can be tested on the digital twin against the same order mix already in flight, so you see the effect on the cut-off before anything moves on a live floor. Once approved, the change reaches the WMS as the pick lists, dock assignments and wave plans it already runs.
- On-time shipment read against a peer set matched on order profile, SKU count and footprint
- Pick pace and dock availability watched against the truck schedule, not the shift clock
- Recovery sequencing tested on the twin before it reaches a live wave
Questions
If you're asking about on-time shipment, start here.
What counts as 'on time' for a shipment?
A shipment counts as on time when it clears the dock before the cut-off it was promised to a carrier or a customer, not simply when the shift that built it finishes on schedule. WareBee times pick start through pack, staging and trailer departure against that specific deadline for every wave, so a wave that finishes within an eight-hour shift but misses an earlier truck is correctly recorded as late.
Does a wave have to be fully picked to count as on time?
No — what matters is whether the shipment it was building left before its own cut-off, not whether every line in the wave finished. A wave can run behind on some lines and still clear its truck if those lines were sequenced correctly against the deadline, and a wave that finishes every line can still miss the trailer if dock readiness or batching didn't line up with when it needed to leave.
Wouldn't a single on-time target be a fairer bar to clear?
Deadline pressure isn't the same variable everywhere, so a single on-time target would be scoring two different operations with one ruler. WareBee's peer set — matched on order profile, SKU count and footprint — swaps that flat target for a comparison against operations juggling a genuinely similar number of cut-offs through the same kind of shift, so a wave gets judged against others carrying that same load, not against a ruler calibrated for an entirely different shift pattern.
How early can a wave that's trending toward a miss be flagged?
As soon as pick pace or dock availability starts trailing what the truck schedule needs, not once the wave has already finished. WareBee runs pace against the remaining order count and watches dock availability against the truck schedule continuously, so a wave trending toward a miss surfaces hours out, while there's still a buffer to reallocate pickers, resize a batch or re-sequence a dock assignment.
What data does WareBee need to track this?
Tracking on-time shipment needs live or near-live pick and scan events alongside the dock schedule and order data your WMS already produces — no new hardware or a fresh integration project. That combination is what lets pick pace get compared against the remaining order count and dock availability against the truck schedule in real time, so the first read of where your waves stand against their cut-offs runs on data you're already generating.
Does a corrected sequence reach the WMS, or just flag the risk?
It reaches the WMS. Once a supervisor approves a recovery sequence, it lands as the re-batched pick lists and revised dock assignment the wave now runs on, not a suggestion someone has to translate by hand. Only the tasks the disruption actually touched get re-solved, so the rest of the day's plan stays untouched, and actuals flow back once the wave clears to inform the next cut-off read.