Carrier Performance Scorecard

The four here cover most decisions: on-time delivery (service), rolls/cancellations (reliability of commitment), claims (cargo care) and invoice accuracy (administrative cost). Add lane-specific extras where they bite — equipment availability for exporters, free-time flexibility, ETA accuracy. Five metrics consistently measured beat fifteen aspirationally defined ones.

Weight by shipments — the summary here does it automatically. Percentages from small samples swing wildly (one late box in ten is 90% OTD), so either set a minimum-shipment threshold per row or read low-volume rows as indicative only. Comparing weighted quarter-on-quarter trends per carrier is fairer still: carriers control their trend more than their absolute number on your specific lanes.

Yes — transparently and in advance of the QBR. Carriers improve against metrics they can see (and will correct data errors you'd otherwise act on). The productive format: here's your scorecard, here's the trend, here's where you rank against the (anonymised) field, here are the two metrics we need moved. Scorecards shared only internally change nothing but your own mood.

A quarter of consistent logging across your main lanes — enough for weighted OTD and roll rates to stabilise. Major decisions (dropping a carrier, shifting contracted volume) deserve two quarters and a shared-scorecard conversation first. The exception is invoice accuracy: even one month of systematic D&D audit findings is actionable, because billing errors are per-invoice facts, not statistical estimates.