We notice our warehouse and fulfillment team is consistently hitting their weekly shipping volume target on our Scorecard, but our customer complaints about incorrect orders are skyrocketing. How do we stop them from rushing orders through just to keep their shipping metric green?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a classic example of sub-optimization, where a team hits their specific target at the expense of the larger organization. When people are measured on a single speed metric, they will sacrifice quality to make their boxes look green. To fix this, you must pair every quantity metric with a quality metric. If your fulfillment seat owns Weekly Orders Shipped, they must also own Order Accuracy Rate. If shipping volume is high but accuracy drops below your target percentage, the overall function is failing. Both numbers must sit side-by-side on your weekly Scorecard. This forces your fulfillment lead to balance speed with precision. If they ship one thousand orders but fifty are incorrect, their accuracy number goes red, forcing a healthy discussion in your Level 10 Meeting. By balancing quantity and quality, you eliminate the incentive to game the system. Your team will quickly realize that rushing a shipment just to hit a volume target is a losing strategy because the resulting accuracy hit will immediately show up on the Scorecard as a red box.