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June 17, 2026
15 minutes
Written by
Parnika Som
Parnika Som
Parnika Som shares practical guidance on AI-powered workflows and product delivery.
Manufacturing managers understand that manufacturing OEE or numbers rule the shop floor. Knowing which numbers to watch and actively measuring them are the main things that set SMB manufacturers apart.
A metric is simply any piece of information recorded by your team. A KPI or key performance indicator is a metric linked directly to a business objective, i.e, increase overall equipment efficiency. Both are essential. As soon as something seems to be amiss with your KPIs, your metrics give you the reason why.
Here, we take a close look at the top seven manufacturing KPIs. You'll also learn how Dhumi, our no-code solution, can help you measure and improve on all of them without writing a line of code.
Companies that monitor the correct Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) generally perform better than those that don’t. This is obvious.
They spot potential quality issues before they manifest themselves in customer complaints. They address potential breakdowns before they occur. Moreover, they take production decisions based on data rather than hunches and shift logs.
Without KPI monitoring, one can only say that a company is shooting blindly. Issues are identified after their impact has been felt by the company.
1. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
The most popular KPI among manufacturers is OEE. This KPI gives an idea of how effectively your machinery is working when it should.
OEE is determined by taking into account the following metrics:
World-class OEE is considered to be 85% or higher. Most SME manufacturing companies run their machines below the metric. In addition, they do not have a way to calculate it since they do not track their losses in terms of downtimes and quality.
How Dhumi helps: Using Dhumi allows you to create an OEE dashboard easily. Your team enters their production data straight into Dhumi. The system determines Availability, Performance, Quality, and displays all three of them on one page. Also, you can set up WhatsApp alerts on low OEE automatically.
2. Machine Downtime
Downtime may very well be the most costly metric on this list. Every hour of downtime for a machine translates to an hour of productivity loss, and in India's manufacturing sector, downtime is one of the easiest-to-prevent yet most frequent causes of reduced profits.
Recording downtime doesn't simply mean tracking when a machine is offline; it also entails understanding why the machine went offline. Was it a mechanical failure? Did it run out of materials? Was it planned maintenance? Or did a slow shift changeover result in downtime? The solution varies for each reason.
Many factories keep their downtime records manually, meaning small periods of downtime go unreported. Studies show that switching from manual to digital methods of downtime reporting leads to a 30-50% increase in reported downtime. There was no change in machine performance, only accuracy in downtime data collection.
How Dhumi helps: Using Dhumi, operators can record downtime reasons through a mobile application or a factory-floor tablet in seconds. The system automatically captures timestamps and categorizes each downtime period according to its reason codes. Managers receive a live downtime dashboard showing the machines that aren't performing as intended, helping them identify and prevent major breakdowns.
3. Production Yield, Costs, and Throughput
Throughput is a measure of production capacity per unit of time. On the other hand, yield is the percentage of production that is usable. Both are indicators of the productivity of your production system.
It's not enough, however, to look at production and yields. Input costs are important, too. There may be a lot of throughput, but that won't stop you from bleeding red ink if there is wastage or high material costs. With all three figures combined, you have a better understanding of which parts of the production process generate profit and which areas generate losses.
How Dhumi can help: Dhumi offers the ability to create production tracking software through which workers enter outputs, wastage, and input used per day. These figures are summarized in an easy-to-understand dashboard to display yield percentages and production cost. Managers have instant access to production data, whether by shift, by production lines, or per item, without having to wait for weekly reports from Excel.
4. Customer Rejection
When a product turns out to be defective at the customer end, it becomes a lot costlier compared to identifying the defect in the quality assurance process. Rejection at the customer's end could be any of these types: return of the product, claim under warranty, or complaint regarding non-conformity. Too many rejections indicate a flaw in the manufacturing process and may be related to poor quality of raw materials, incorrect calibration of machines, human mistakes, or a lack of proper inspection.
How Dhumi helps: Dhumi enables you to record each and every customer rejection, along with all details like batch number, manufacturing line, defect type, and production date. With time, the platform creates a comprehensive database of rejection trends. In case a certain kind of defect is found to be occurring again and again, it clearly highlights the probable cause for the defect.
5. Lead Time to Customer
The lead time to the customer is defined as the amount of time taken for an order to be placed until the delivery of the product. There are three elements involved: order processing time, production lead time, and delivery time.
This metric directly impacts the level of satisfaction of your customers and your chances of earning repeat business. The factory that manages to meet deadlines earns the trust of the customers. Those that don't face the loss of orders silently since their customers choose not to return anymore.
How Dhumi comes in handy: Dhumi allows you to convert your entire order management process into a digital one so that each and every step in the order cycle can be monitored in real-time. All departments, such as sales teams, production teams, and dispatch teams, operate on the same platform. When an order is found to be jeopardizing the set deadline, it will be flagged automatically and notified to the appropriate person concerned.
6. Inventory Turns
Inventory Turns track how often your inventory gets utilized and refreshed during a period. It applies to inventory in the form of raw material as well as finished products.
In case of low inventory turns, you are stocking up on products longer than required, which leads to excess cash being invested in materials lying idle on shelves. In case of high inventory turns, you may face a lack of stock and face problems in manufacturing.
Low inventory turns in the case of MRO inventory (spare parts) is common among Indian factories. In many cases, the factory is stocked with spare parts for years, while facing a shortage of the spare parts it requires.
How Dhumi can help: Dhumi can be configured as an inventory application where the stock level gets updated in real time when materials are consumed or delivered to the factory. You can assign a minimum stock level for each product. Dhumi will raise a purchase request in case the inventory falls below the minimum level.
7. Maintenance Metrics
Maintenance metrics come one step below your key KPIs. These metrics reveal the reasons behind the poor performance of your KPIs.
Three maintenance metrics that you should definitely monitor are:
Planned Maintenance Percentage (PMP) is the ratio between the total hours dedicated to preventive maintenance work versus emergency fixes. A factory performing mostly reactive maintenance can collapse under the pressure of any production breakdown.
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) shows how long a machine functions before failing. Lowered MTBF values show that a particular piece of equipment wears out.
Maintenance Cost as a Percentage of Asset Value (RAV) indicates the cost-efficiency of operating your equipment based on its market value. The increase of this metric can be a sign that a machine requires maintenance, repair, or even replacement.
How Dhumi helps: Dhumi provides users with an opportunity to create a maintenance process flow and assign a maintenance schedule to each machine. Technicians get automatic notifications about upcoming maintenance tasks. Every performed maintenance job gets logged along with its costs and results. MTBF and PMP are calculated automatically.
Not all of the KPIs mentioned above will have an equal level of significance for each manufacturing company. The initial step is determining the goals of your company.
In case your company faces problems such as complaints from customers due to defects, then the key points to measure will be customer rejects and OEE quality metrics. In case your problem is late deliveries, then the lead time to the customer becomes crucial.
After determining what KPIs need to be measured, the next step is implementing these measurements without creating additional workload for your employees through excessive paperwork and spreadsheets. This is where Dhumi makes the difference.
Most manufacturers continue to record their KPIs via shift-wise records, WhatsApp messages, and spreadsheets. At best, the data arrives outdated after a day. By then, it is too late to take any corrective action.
With Dhumi, you get real-time data flows tailored to your processes. Your employees do not have to master complex systems. Rather, they enter information using simple mobile-based apps developed by Dhumi for your workflow. You don’t have to calculate anything. The system takes care of the computations and the visualizations itself.
What you will have is a factory where you can address issues even as they arise. To find out more about Dhumi’s implementation for your manufacturing process, schedule a free demo.
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