PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT IN WAREHOUSING: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

As warehousing’s importance to organisational competitiveness and the bottom line becomes increasingly recognised in literature, the question of measuring warehouse performance is essential. Researchers have addressed warehouse performance evaluation from different perspectives, although comprehensive, systematic reviews remain rare due to usual focus on a particular aspect of warehousing. Recognising the need to produce an encompassing performance framework for warehouse management, this study offers a systematic literature review of the existing research to group the identified metrics and link them to strategic tasks in warehousing. 178 unique performance metrics were classified into four dimensions: operational, financial, social, and environmental and further assigned into 12 subdimensions. The study offers several contributions to the existing knowledge of warehouse performance. It synthesised the literature, provided the metrics’ definitions, and developed a comprehensive framework of performance based on metrics’ grouping as linked to management’s strategic decision making. The framework can be used as a guidance for customised performance systems based on management needs. The presented framework, however, is not seen as all- encompassing. In view of the dynamically developing measurement research in the social and environmental dimensions, it is expected that these dimensions will be expanded with new metrics soon.