TABLE OF CONTENTS

An important part of WOS Insights is providing details on order processing speed in the forms of Per Hour metrics.  These calculations are a best-guess estimation.  The details of how these calculations are made are provided below.

Ideal Hour-based Metrics

In an ideal scenario, hour based metrics would be based on a time tracking system.  Employees would log in and out of tasks, providing the baseline measure of hours worked.  Per-order measures would then be matched to the time tracking system to provide metrics on how many orders, lines, etc. were completed within those hours worked.


WarehouseOS does not have a time tracking system available.  The details available to WarehouseOS does not include start or stop times, but instead provides timestamps as to when events occurred.  These timestamps can be used for near-accurate metrics regarding hours worked.  But the timestamps cannot take into account a true start time, break time, lunches, meetings, or anything else that does not result in a timestamp in the system.


Previous Task Time Calculation

Because WarehouseOS does not have start and stop times, hourly calculations are based on the user's time between each task.  As each History Log record is pulled into WOS Insights, an "activity time" is calculated for each record.  Each record is matched up to the record that occurred previously for that user.  The difference in time is calculated between those two records.


This calculation provides accurate details on how long each action took, as long as the user is continually working within the system.  But this calculation starts to have gaps by not accounting for meetings, start times, or other reasons the user might not be working.

Time Calculation Examples

In the example below, Jill starts the day in receiving.  The first transaction event that is recorded is at 7:43 am when Jill hits "Commit" against receipts that have been counted and scanned in.  At this time, there is no knowledge of how long that count took.  Jill could have started receiving this transaction at 7:30, taking some time to make sure the receiving stations are clean, pulling pallets over to her stations, down stacking mixed pallets to get organized.  None of this time is known or tracked until the first transaction is entered and recorded into the WOS History Log.  The Activity Time of this transaction is blank because there is no previous transaction to use to calculate it.


The second transaction of Jill's day occurs at 8:14.  Another item has been received and committed a qty of 60 into WOS.  The system looks up Jill's previous transaction (the one from above at 7:43 am) and calculates the time difference of 1,837 seconds (or 30 min and 37 seconds).   Again, there is no knowledge of a brief stop to attend a morning stand up at 8am.


The third transaction occurs at 8:19.  Again, the system looks up Jill's previous transaction (the one from above at 8:14) and calculates a time difference of 338 seconds (or 5 min and 38 seconds).


Note: The time stamps in this screenshot are in UTC. The actual offset from UTC depends on which time zone these events occurred and whether daylight savings is in effect.  For the purposes of demonstration, we are assuming a -6 hour offset from UTC.  So 13:43 is actually 7:43 am.


Later on in the day, Jill transitions from Receiving to Packing.  The last receipt occurred at 11:22 am.  The first box closed (which is also when the items in the box get reported) was at 12:03.  There must have been some time after that PO Receipt at 11:22 am before Jill was completely finished in receiving.  It's possible Jill went to lunch between 11:30 and 12:00 before diving into Packing.  There could have been some prep time at packing to make sure the boxes were stocked and the printer had labels.  None of this can be determined from a list of transactions against the system.  So an activity time of 2,492 seconds (or 41 minutes and 32 seconds) is recorded.  



Task Time Assumptions

Without the ability to calculate the actual time worked on a specific task, based on the time clocked into a time tracking system, WOS Insights has to make some general assumptions.  On the Picking and Packing side, thousands of transactions against multiple customers were reviewed to come up with a very general assumption.  "Most picking and packing tasks should not take more than 5 minutes".  If the activity time recorded is blank or greater than 300 seconds, an assumption is made that some other, non-transaction type of activity must have preceded it.  That transaction is set as taking 5 minutes.


For Jill's Packing task that was recorded as 2,492 seconds (or 41 minutes and 32 seconds), that is not the number that would be reported as "time worked".  Because of the assumption that any individual packing task should not take more than 5 minutes, this particular task will report 5 minutes towards the total packing time.

Custom Assumptions

If you would like to set a different assumption against the data for your instance of WOS Insights, please reach out to support@warehouseos.com.  The default time can be adjusted and previous records updated to use this new calculation.


Accuracy and Use in Comparisons

Without access to a time tracking system and because of the assumptions that need to be made, we caution in how these numbers are used.  They can't provide true accounts of "hours worked" and should consider the limitations when being used in employee performance.


But with those cautions in place, the hourly rate calculations provided by WOS Insights can still provide valuable insights when compared over time and against other users.  Because the same assumptions apply to all users, general comparisons are valid.  Because the known gaps are minimized throughout a single day to transitions, meetings, and other such events, over time they will be smoothed out when making those comparisons.


Time Tracking Integrations

WarehouseOS has not yet attempted to integrate a time tracking system into WOS Insights.  An integration into a time tracking system could provide the start/stop times necessary for a more accurate representation of the hours worked.  There is an interest in creating this integration and updating WOS Insights to take this type of data into account.  A partner that could provide this data has not yet been identified.  Development of an internal time tracking system has been discussed but not yet prioritized.


If you have an interest in updating your hour-based metrics and are using a time tracking system that could be integrated into, please reach out to support@warehouseos.com to discuss a potential project.