Today executives are examining the logistics function as a strategic opportunity for process improvement, cost savings, and increased customer satisfaction. APQC created our popular Logistics Tune-Up Diagnostic and Interactive Logistics Tune-Up Diagnostic to help organizations find out if its logistics function is running smoothly. Both tools have been updated for 2014 with fresh data from our Open Standards Benchmarking in logistics.

The Logistics Tune-Up provides data and descriptions for five essential logistics metrics:

• total cost of the process Plan and manage inbound material flow per $1,000 revenue,
• total cost of the process Operate warehousing per $1,000 revenue,
• total cost of the process Operate outbound transportation per $1,000 revenue,
• pick-to-ship cycle time in hours, and
• number of FTEs in the logistics function per $1 billion revenue.

The Interactive Logistics Tune-Up Diagnostic is a spreadsheet that allows you to input your organization’s performance on those metrics and compare it to that of the organizations in the Open Standards Benchmarking data. It even color codes your input to quickly give you an idea of where your organization can improve.