The 21 industrial performance indicators to monitor, based on our study of 210 industrial sites

Your production dashboard likely tracks OEE, scrap, and lead times closely. The teams on the shop floor are rarely included in these metrics, even though that’s often where the gap begins.

The 21 industrial performance indicators presented here range from machinery to skills, each with its own formula and a reference point for interpretation. Match each outcome indicator with a capacity indicator which reports this. For most of these companies, the data comes from a Mercateam study conducted on a sample of 210 industrial sites.

What is an industrial performance indicator?

An industrial performance indicator, or KPI (key performance indicator), compares a production result to a target. It requires a consistent approach, a target, a person in charge, and a set frequency.

Performance indicators reflect results that have already occurred, such as the weekly OEE or the monthly scrap rate. Capacity indicators measure the factors that influence these results, giving you time to take action before a deviation occurs. A balanced scorecard combines both, and that is the order followed here—from equipment to teams—followed by five financial indicators.

KPI	Family	Indicators	Nature	Question asked
1 to 4	Facilities	TRS, TRG, MTBF, MTTR	Result	Do the machines produce when they're supposed to?
5 and 6	Productivity and Throughput	Labor Productivity, Cycle Time	Result	Is production keeping pace with demand?
7 to 9	Quality	Scrap Rate, RPP, Cost of Non-Quality	Result	Can you get it right the first time, and at what cost?
10 to 12	Costs and Timelines	Unit cost, lead time, OTD	Result	Are deliveries made on time and at a reasonable price?
13 to 15	Teams and Schedule	Absenteeism, employee turnover, schedule stability	Capacity	Are the projected headcounts in place?
16 to 18	Skills	Versatility, Job Coverage, Monopolies	Capacity	Do those present have a good grasp of their positions?
19 to 21	Security and Compliance	Frequency rates, compliant assignments, compliance of authorizations	Earnings and Capacity	Are we following the rules and keeping our clearances up to date?

What metrics should be tracked for equipment?

Four indicators describe the production facility. The TRS and TRG measure performance, the MTBF measures reliability, and the MTTR measures the speed of recovery after a failure.

1. Total Return (TRS)

A machine that is available 90 %, operates at 85 %, and produces 95 % of good parts has an OEE of 72.7 %. This aggregate figure does not indicate where time is being lost; its three components pinpoint its location.

Performance depends directly on the operator, from their settings to the pace they maintain. If performance drops during certain time slots, check who was working that shift before opening a machine track.

2. Internal Rate of Return (IRR)

Why follow both? This discrepancy sets the organization's decisions apart. If it continues to grow without a decrease in workload, your site is leaving capacity unused—perhaps due to a lack of qualified operators, for example.

3. MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures)

A declining MTBF indicates that the equipment is aging, inadequate preventive maintenance, or changes in operating conditions. By tracking each machine individually, it helps prioritize replacements and upgrades.

4. MTTR (Mean Time to Repair)

A high MTTR is most often caused by a missing part, a lengthy diagnostic process, or an under-trained technician. It's hard to see another cause in the average, the absence of the only person authorized to do so.

If a repair requires authorization that is held by only one person who is currently absent, the repair must wait until that person returns. Count your authorized technicians by critical product line; if there is only one, the MTTR depends on that person’s vacation schedule.

When considered alongside MTBF, MTTR provides a more complete picture of the fleet’s reliability. One indicates how frequently failures occur, while the other indicates how long they halt production.

Productivity and Throughput Metrics

Labor Productivity calculates output per hour worked. The cycle time indicates whether this volume is being produced at the rate required by demand, as expressed by the takt time.

5. Labor Productivity

Does a decline in productivity mean there aren't enough people? First, make sure that those present were familiar with their positions, because a site with a large workforce may lack qualified employees for demanding positions.

Next, cross-reference productivity with absenteeism and the staffing schedule to identify the root cause: bottlenecks, lack of training, or chronic understaffing.

6. Cycle time and takt time

With a takt time of 60 seconds, one part must come off the line every minute. A longer cycle time will not be able to keep up Without reinforcements, and under much less favorable conditions, production is scaled back.

When cycle time deteriorates for reasons unrelated to the machine, review the operator’s recent performance. A skill that has not been practiced remains validated in the matrix, even if the operator has forgotten how to perform the task.

Sector	Median per site
Pharmaceuticals	26,1 %
Cosmetics	32,4 %
Food industry	40,8 %
Automotive	44,9 %
Aeronautics	49,6 %

Three Metrics for Quality Management

The scrap rate counts what goes into the dumpster, the RPP—which isn't right the first time—and the cost of non-quality, converting both into euros.

7. Reject rate

An increase in scrap can be attributed to setup, material, or skill. MES systems track the first two; for the third, Check whether the operator met all the job requirements.

Sector	Positions Analyzed	No full-time player	Part
Automotive	1 156	647	56,0 %
Cosmetics	255	88	34,5 %
Food industry	611	195	31,9 %
Aeronautics	2 112	533	25,2 %
Pharmaceuticals	377	75	19,9 %
Together	4 511	1 538	34,1 %

A position without a full-time incumbent has no employee who possesses all of the required qualifications and authorizations. No compliant assignment is possible there, that the requirement is missing from the team or the matrix.

Compare this list with your rejects by station. If the quality issues are concentrated there, focus on skills first, before adjusting settings or changing materials.

8. First-Pass Yield (FPY)

The RPP is more stringent than the rejection rate, because it also includes pieces that have been successfully repaired. The difference between the two measures the workload that the workshop absorbs without realizing it.

9. Cost of Non-Quality

Internal costs are calculated based on production data. External costs require data from customer service and accounting, so’They are often left out of the calculation.

Expressed in euros, this cost can be directly compared to a training or maintenance budget, which a percentage cannot.

How can you track production costs and deadlines?

The unit cost indicates how much a single item costs, the lead time (how long the customer has to wait), and the OTD (whether the promised date was met).

10. Production cost per unit

An increase in pace lowers the unit cost without any real progress, simply by spreading out the fixed costs. Also track the labor cost per unit, including overtime and temporary labor.

When tracked over time, the unit cost measures the impact of your continuous improvement efforts on material waste, downtime, and energy consumption.

11. Lead Time

When broken down, the lead time generally shows that The wait times between stages carry more weight than the transformation itself. Reducing it without improving the reliability of the upstream process shifts the problem to quality.

12. Customer Service Rate (OTD)

The OTD covers the entire chain, from planning to shipping. If it drops for no apparent reason during production, review the weeks when the assignment schedule was the most heavily edited (KPI 15).

HR Metrics That Drive Production

Absenteeism, Turnover, and Schedule Stability say whether the projected headcount is in place, and the cost of reorganizing them. These are the primary indicators of capacity, and the study provides the most insights in this area.

13. Absenteeism Rate

A rate that has consistently been above the national average often indicates excessive workload, stress, or a lack of recognition. Identify any absences discovered upon starting the shift and reassign them within the hour.

Do two sites with 5 % in absenteeism pay the same price? No, because it all depends on their ability to replace the absent employee with a qualified person, as measured by versatility and position coverage (KPIs 16 and 17).

14. Turnover

Every departure comes at a cost in terms of recruitment, onboarding, and job training—not to mention the expertise that leaves when the person leaves. Exit interviews help us understand why people leave.

This expertise is measured in terms of versatility, which builds up with seniority during the first few years and then levels off, with different trajectories depending on the contract.

For permanent contracts, the percentage rises from 10.6 % in the first year to 23.5 % between one and three years, then to 31.8 % between three and ten years, before leveling off. Turnover is concentrated among permanent contracts lasting more than three years therefore has the greatest impact on your flexibility, more so than a high rate among new patients.

Temporary workers who have been with the company for three to ten years account for 43.4 %, a higher percentage than those with permanent contracts, likely because they are assigned to areas where there are staff shortages and thus fill more positions.

15. Schedule Stability

A schedule that is constantly being adjusted reflects unforeseen circumstances (absences, breakdowns, emergencies), or a structure created without knowing who is in charge of which position.

The time period during which the changes are concentrated helps distinguish between the two. This is the first piece of data to look at when trying to improve the staff scheduling management.

Wednesday and Thursday account for 45 % of the most recent updates, with a peak on Wednesday at 8 a.m. On weekdays, 48 % of these updates occur between 6 a.m. and 12 p.m., when employees start their shifts.

So the schedule tends to settle down as the week goes on. On your website, changes made when new employees start their jobs mostly reveal inconsistencies; if they always involve the same positions, you should rethink the structure.

Site Size	P25	Median	P75
50 to 100 employees	119	212	344
100 to 300 employees	221	467	851
More than 300 employees	650	1 277	2 112

For comparable sizes, the volume can vary from one-third to three or even four times as much between P25 and P75, as it combines differences between sites and weekly variations. Compare your data to your own weeks.

What metrics should be used to manage production capabilities?

An operator is performing a job properly when It meets all of its requirements, verified skills, and up-to-date certifications. On average, a position has between 3.73 (pharmaceutical) and 7.20 (automotive) of these.

The following three indicators are based on this strict definition. An operator who meets six out of seven requirements may work at the position every day, but is not counted as qualified.

16. Versatility Rate

The classification of sectors is less important than the width of the bars, because sites within the same sector are more widely spread out, especially in the automotive sector. Organization matters more than the sector on the versatility.

Nor do the number of requirements explain the rate. The pharmaceutical industry, which has the fewest requirements per position, and the automotive industry, which has the most, have nearly identical medians.

17. Position Coverage Rate

The threshold of three members is a rule for using versatility matrices, because’It compensates for both an absence and a leave of absence at the same time without affecting anyone who is unqualified.

Here, the sectors are arranged in the same way along both axes, unlike in the case of versatility (KPI 16). Five data points don’t make a rule, but Each additional requirement reduces the number of full-time employees.

So measure the coverage before and after each change in the reference framework: if you add a qualification requirement to a position, you’ll be quantifying the flexibility lost at the time of the decision. Before providing training, check which validated skills have never been assigned. (KPI 6), the primary source of coverage.

18. Rate of exclusive jurisdiction

The number of monopolies also depends on the granularity of the reference framework. The more a site details special procedures and individual authorizations, the more it finds; in the aerospace industry, compare your situation to your history.

Sector	Locations with at least one monopoly	Monopolies per site (median)	Positions with a single incumbent (median)
Aeronautics	100 %	52	14,3 %
Cosmetics	100 %	9	0 %
Automotive	93,5 %	8	8,3 %
Pharmaceuticals	93,3 %	7	5,7 %
Food industry	100 %	5	7,1 %

The two measures do not overlap. In cosmetics, Median: No position has a single incumbent, while each site has a median of 9 areas of expertise held by a single person.

A dual-role position may therefore conceal expertise held by a single person. List these critical skills First, in terms of training, before the announced departures.

Security and Compliance Metrics

The frequency rate tracks reported accidents. The rates of proper assignments and authorization compliance check in advance to ensure that everyone is qualified and up to date.

19. Workplace Accident Frequency Rate

The frequency rate relates accidents to hours worked, while the national index relates accidents to the workforce. Only the rate provides a fair comparison of sites with different schedules.

The TF remains a performance indicator that fluctuates once an accident has occurred, with line stoppages and teams that need to be reorganized. Supplement it by tracking near-misses and ensuring compliance with staffing assignments.

20. Compliance Rate

Over a 12-month period, the sites studied recorded approximately 1,435 non-compliant assignments per day. Per site, The median is 14.2 % ; one-quarter of the sites remain below 3.6 %, and one-quarter exceed 31.2 %.

Should we be alarmed by every non-compliant assignment? Not always, because the missing requirement could be a quality competency or an expired authorization. Break down the rate by requirement type before the committee.

21. Authorization Compliance Rate

An expired authorization makes any assignment to a position that requires it noncompliant, even when the employee has mastered the task. Each of these assignments then results in non-compliance with KPI 20.

KPI 21 tracks clearances, whereas KPI 20 tracks assignments. An operator who holds six clearances, one of which has expired, therefore has one overdue clearance out of six.

Next, break down the rate by clearance type and by team, because a good overall rate may mask a critical security clearance for which several holders are behind schedule.

Monitoring limited to the’annual personal interview lets these deadlines slip by for months. Our skills matrix records the validity period of each authorization and sends a reminder before it expires.

Seven complementary indicators, ranging from maintenance to finance

These seven indicators supplement the previous 21 depending on your website's priorities. The first two are typically discussed during production meetings, while the other five are best addressed during executive committee meetings or annual reviews.

Environmental indicators, such as energy or carbon emissions per unit produced, are now included, driven by regulations and the requirements of clients.

Indicator	Formula	What it illuminates
Capacity utilization rate	(Planned load / available capacity) × 100	Overcrowding or underutilization of positions and teams
Adherence to the production plan	(Actual production / projected production) × 100	Reliability of the Production Schedule
Employee Satisfaction Index	Average score from internal surveys, out of 10 or on a % scale	Engagement, Risk of Absenteeism, and Turnover
Preventive Maintenance Ratio	(Preventive maintenance cost / total maintenance cost) × 100	Maturity of maintenance, reliability to come
Inventory Turnover Rate	Cost of Goods Sold / Average Inventory	Fixed assets, risk of obsolescence
Gross Profit Margin	((Revenue – cost of goods sold) / revenue) × 100	Profitability of Production Before Overhead Costs
ROI of Industrial Equipment	((Revenue generated – total cost of equipment) / total cost) × 100	Appropriateness of Machinery Investments

Load factor

The load factor, or capacity utilization rate, relates the planned load to the available capacity. When the workload exceeds capacity, the plan demands more than the workshop can provide.

Calculating capacity in terms of hours worked assumes that everyone is proficient in every position. Calculate the workload position by position, taking coverage into account (KPI 17), because a position with only one employee will reach capacity first.

Adherence to the production plan

Adherence to the production plan, also known as production schedule reliability, compares actual production to planned production. It is tracked daily or weekly, by quantity.

Schedule stability (KPI 15) tracks personnel assignments, while this metric tracks volume. When it drops without any breakdowns or material shortages, check who was working those shifts that day.

Employee Satisfaction Index

The satisfaction index, measured through quarterly or semiannual surveys, assesses the well-being and engagement of teams. It's only useful if you then treat the irritants that have risen to the surface.

Fairness in work assignments is a key factor in this score. When only two workers are qualified to handle a demanding position, it’s always the same two who end up doing it—a situation that KPIs 17 and 18 anticipate.

Preventive Maintenance Ratio

The goal is to increase the focus on prevention, with an 80/20 split often targeted, because every euro spent on preventive maintenance avoids emergency repairs and production line downtime.

A stagnant ratio may be hampered by the availability of technicians authorized to perform preventive maintenance: as soon as a breakdown occurs, they are dispatched to handle the corrective work, and the preventive maintenance round is skipped.

Inventory Turnover Rate

A high turnover rate means that Inventory moves through the system and is converted into revenue, a low turnover rate that ties up capital. The appropriate level depends on the industry and lead times.

Gross Profit Margin

Gross margin measures the profitability of production before indirect expenses. If it declines while volume remains stable, either your costs are rising or your selling prices are eroding.

Track it month by month and product by product: a consolidated figure at the site level masks the unprofitable items among the profitable ones.

ROI of Industrial Equipment

Calculated before the purchase, The projected ROI helps prioritize projects of the investment committee. Calculated after the system goes live, the actual ROI either validates or invalidates the initial assumptions.

The gap between the two is also due to the teams, because a new production line—whose settings few operators have mastered—takes time to reach full capacity. Include the training plan in your calculations from the start.

How to Choose Your Industrial Performance Metrics?

Select 5 to 10 metrics per management level, selected from your 3 to 5 top priorities. A team leader doesn’t track the same KPIs as a production manager, and no one reads a 21-line table.

Each one must be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). Then, associate each outcome indicator with the capacity indicator that precedes it, as shown below.

Your Top Priority	Performance Indicators	Capacity Metrics to Monitor Concurrently
Breakdowns and Line Outages	TRS (1), MTBF (3), MTTR (4)	Monopolies on Maintenance Certifications (18)
Non-quality	Scrap Rate (7), RPP (8), Cost of Nonconformity (9)	Positions Filled (17), Appropriate Assignments (20)
Delivery Delays	OTD (12), lead time (11)	Schedule stability (15), position coverage (17)
Absences and Substitutes	Absenteeism (13), labor productivity (5)	Versatility (16), Position Coverage (17)
Turnover and Employee Retention	Turnover (14)	Versatility by tenure (16), monopolies (18)
Audits and Security	Frequency (19)	Compliant Assignments (20), Authorization Compliance (21)

An indicator is only worthwhile if it is understood by the field teams. Posted at the workstation, updated daily, and discussed during the team meeting, it becomes a management tool.

Before each review, also ask when the data used to calculate the metric was collected. A rate calculated based on evaluations from more than a year ago reflects your site’s history rather than its current performance.

Summary table of the 21 indicators

No.	Indicator	Family	Summarized formula	Landmark
1	TRS	Facilities	Availability × Performance × Quality	85 % world-class, approximately 60 % standard
2	TRG	Facilities	Effective time / open time	Less than or equal to the TRS
3	MTBF	Facilities	Operating time / number of failures	Trend by machine
4	MTTR	Facilities	Repair time / number of failures	Distribution of Durations
5	Labor productivity	Productivity	Quantity Produced / Hours Worked	With a constant product mix
6	Cycle time	Productivity	End of production – Start of production	Less than or equal to the takt time
7	Scrap rates	Quality	Rejected quantity / total quantity produced × 100	By position and by team
8	RPP (FPY)	Quality	Passed the first inspection / produced × 100	≤ 100 % – scrap rate
9	Cost of non-quality	Quality	Scrap + rework + returns + complaints	In euros and as a percentage of revenue
10	Unit cost	Costs and Timelines	Total Costs / Units Produced	At constant volume
11	Lead time	Costs and Timelines	Delivery – Receipt of the Order	Step by step
12	OTD	Costs and Timelines	On-time deliveries / orders × 100	Often 95 % or more
13	Absenteeism	Teams	Days absent / total days × 100	4.98 % in 2025
14	Turnover	Teams	Departures / average headcount × 100	By seniority and status
15	Schedule Stability	Teams	Allocations unchanged / allocations × 100	To be updated weekly, with the date of changes
16	Versatility	Skills	Operators in 2 or more shifts / operators × 100	Median of 10.1 % to 20.1 %
17	Filling Open Positions	Skills	Positions with 3 or more incumbents / positions × 100	24.8 % to 77.8 % of understaffed positions
18	Monopolies on Expertise	Skills	Single-holder competencies	97 % of the affected sites
19	Frequency rate	Security	Accidents resulting in lost time × 1,000,000 / hours	National rate: 26.4 per 1,000 employees
20	Compliant Assignments	Compliance	Compliant assignments / assignments × 100	85.7 (average of Q1 and Q3)
21	Compliance with Authorizations	Compliance	Current authorizations / total authorizations × 100	Goal 100 %
+	Load factor	Supplement	Planned load / available capacity × 100	Per position and per week
+	Adherence to the production plan	Supplement	Actual production / projected production × 100	Per day or per week
+	Employee Satisfaction	Supplement	Average score from internal surveys	Quarterly or Semiannual Survey
+	Preventive maintenance	Supplement	Preventive maintenance cost / total maintenance cost × 100	The 80/20 rule is often cited
+	Stock rotation	Supplement	Cost of Goods Sold / Average Inventory	Depending on the sector and lead times
+	Gross margin	Supplement	(Revenue – cost of production) / Revenue × 100	By product and by month
+	Return on Investment (ROI) for Equipment	Supplement	(Profit – cost) / cost × 100	Forecast, then actual

Your ERP, MES, CMMS, and HRIS systems provide most of this data. Skills are an exception, which are often scattered across several files even though they feed into five of them (KPIs 16 through 18, 20, and 21).

To see where your site fits into the study's framework based on your own data, request a Mercateam demo.