On time and in full (OTIF)
On time and in full, or OTIF, is the share of orders that go out complete and when they were promised. It answers the first question a warehouse gets run on: will we deliver today's commitments? It's most useful measured by order type and by client and seen during the shift, rather than in next month's report.
How is OTIF calculated?
Take the orders that went out complete and on time, divide by all the orders due in the same period and multiply by 100. An order counts when both are true: every line in full and out by the time promised. Measure it by order type and by client, since one blended figure hides the orders that matter most.
Put plainly: you ordered three products for tomorrow; did you get three products tomorrow?
On time
On time means the order went out by the time it was promised for.
In full
In full means every line on the order went out in the quantity ordered.
What is a good OTIF percentage?
The one written into your customer's agreement, measured the way the agreement measures it. A blended figure can look healthy while the orders that matter most, the urgent ones and the ones somebody is stood waiting for, run late. The better question is which orders missed and why, which needs OTIF by order type and by client.
A 3PL we work with put it simply: a green figure shouldn't hide a red customer underneath it, and it shouldn't need somebody to explain it before it's believed.
Where the warehouse runs work for several clients, each one's figure sits against its own contract, which is where OTIF meets the money. More on that under 3PL contract margin.
Will we hit today's promises?
You can tell during the shift if you can see how far each trailer's orders have got and where the work is stuck. Without that view, a miss usually shows up after the trailer has gone, when all that's left is explaining it. Fettle puts that view in front of you, by order type and by client.
What a manager needs by mid-morning isn't whether yesterday's figure was met; it's whether the work due before each cut-off is going to be ready.
The pressure usually starts a long way from the warehouse. In parts distribution a mechanic has a car booked in and promised back that afternoon, the branch is waiting on the depot and the depot is waiting on the distribution centre. The distribution centre often hasn't made the connection, so it picks in the order the system hands out rather than the order somebody is waiting in. Knowing who's waiting, and why they can't wait, changes what gets picked first.
Our founder spent twenty-eight years running the systems at a parts distributor that delivered more than 85 per cent of its orders within the hour.
The work itself can hold things up as well: stock that isn't where the system says it is, or pick lists that send everybody down the same aisle at once. Both sit under whether the warehouse is set up to work efficiently.
More answers on OTIF
Every question we've answered so far is on the answers page.
Where late orders tend to start
12.5%
More output from the same people, by regrouping the pick lists so pickers stopped queuing for the same aisles
A warehouse of around 600 people we've worked in, measured before and after the change
A best picker lost 24 minutes of 57 to stock that wasn't where the system said it was. None of it was recorded, so standard times alone would have marked her down
See on time and in full by order type
The demo takes about an hour and is set up for the kind of warehouse you run. It can start from this question.
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