Checking your KPMs (Key Performance Metrics)

"To manage it you need to measure it" is a common dictate of effective management. Recently, more and more printers are focusing on this directive as they search for Key Performance Metrics (KPMs) to provide management oversight.

In an April report from the Printing Industries of America's Center for Print Economics and Management, eight KPMs are identified that the Center believes best represent superior performance in the printing industry based on historical analysis of PIA Ratios. Those eight KPMs are:

• Gross profit as a percentage of sales (sales minus total cost of product as a percentage of sales).
• Before tax profit as a percentage of sales (sales minus all expenses before income taxes as a percentage of sales).
• Before-tax profit per employee (full-time equivalent employees).
• Gross profit per factory employee (full-time equivalent factory employees).
• Sales per employee (full-time equivalent employees).
• Sales per factory employee (full-time equivalent factory employees).
• Value added per employee (full-time equivalent employees).
• Value added per factory employee (full-time equivalent factory employees).

The report says: "Calculating your KPMs is the first step of a three-step process of how, why and what printers need to know to improve their firm's performance."

Download the report