Fill rate
How much of what was ordered you were able to ship.
01 What it is
Why anyone looks at this number
How much of what was ordered you were able to ship.
It isolates the availability half of service. When fill rate is the problem, the answer is stock and planning, not transport.
02 The formula
How it is worked out
Fill rate = units_shipped ÷ units_ordered grain : week × product × site unit : percentage source : Order management
Decide whether substitutions count as filled. Counting a substitute as a full fill can hide a complete failure of the line the customer actually wanted.
03 Worked example
The same number, with real inputs
| Units ordered | 412,000 |
| Units shipped | 396,000 |
| Calculation | 396,000 ÷ 412,000 |
| Result | 96.1% |
16,000 units of unmet demand. At €12.50 that is €200k of revenue that walked, and some of it will not come back next week.
04 What moves it
Four things that actually change this number
Forecast accuracy
The upstream cause of most stockouts.
Safety stock policy
What you deliberately hold to absorb error.
Supplier reliability
Late inbound becomes late outbound one lead time later.
Allocation rules
Who gets the stock when there is not enough for everyone.
05 Where the number lives
The system, the record and the fields
| System of record | Key record | Fields you need |
|---|---|---|
| Order management | Order line joined to Goods issue | ordered_qty, shipped_qty, backorder_flag, substitution_flag |
Decide whether substitutions count as filled. Counting a substitute as a full fill can hide a complete failure of the line the customer actually wanted.
06 How it goes wrong
Three ways this metric misleads people
Counting substitutions as fills
Service looks fine while customers quietly move to another supplier.
Fix: Flag substitutions and report them separately.Ignoring what was never ordered
Customers stop ordering what they know you never have, so the gap disappears from the data.
Fix: Watch order frequency by customer alongside fill rate.Averaging across the range
The A items sit at 99% and the tail at 70%, which is invisible in an average.
Fix: Report by product class.08 Questions
Frequently asked
What is the difference between fill rate and OTIF?
Fill rate measures completeness only. OTIF measures completeness and timing together, which is what the customer actually experiences.
Is 100% fill rate the goal?
Almost never. The stock required to guarantee it costs more than the sales it protects, except for the few lines where a stockout loses the whole account.
One definition, everywhere it is used
SCIKIQ stores this metric once and serves it to every dashboard, board pack and agent that asks.