Fill rate falls apart when cases and kilograms share a column
Last spring a category owner asked us to rank eight food vendors by fill rate for a closed quarter. The extract mixed case counts, pallet counts, and two bulk oils recorded in kilograms. The oils looked like heroes because a shorted drum still posted a high kilo percentage against a large denominator.
We split the table. Cases stayed with cases. Kilos stayed with kilos. The oil vendors dropped into the middle of the pack, which matched what the kitchen already knew: the drums arrived, but the ordered SKU mix did not.
A procurement trend review should refuse a single percentage across unlike units. If the SLA mentions “ordered lines complete,” count lines. If it mentions “ordered weight,” count weight. Write the unit on every chart title so nobody photocopies a blended number into the QBR pack.
Substitutions deserve their own column. A vendor who ships a sister SKU may save the line from a stock-out and still fail the original SKU fill. Mixing those stories into one fill-rate cell hides both the rescue and the miss.