Free field guide · Updated for 2026

The four numbers every plant should know cold.

A short, opinionated guide for plant managers and ops directors. The math, the common ways each metric gets fudged in reporting, and a fill-in worksheet you can run in your next stand-up.

Format
PDF · 17 pages
Worksheets
4 fill-in
Read time
~25 min
Book the call · get the guide

Or read the public essay version: The four numbers every plant should know cold — same content, web-only, no booking required.

FactoryView · Field guide 01

The 4 metrics every plant should know cold.

Plus the common ways each one gets fudged — and worksheets to do it right.
Pages
18
Worksheets
4
Updated
May 2026
Edition
v3
FactoryView.net v3 · 2026
01 · What's inside
Four metrics · formulas · gotchas

Each metric — the math, the lies, the worksheet.

No fluff intro chapter. No "history of manufacturing measurement." Straight to the formulas, the ways they get gamed in monthly reporting, and a fill-in sheet you can use this week.

01 The hero · over-reported

OEE — and the three lies inside it.

OEE = Availability × Performance × Quality

Overall Equipment Effectiveness is the most-cited and most-fudged number in shop-floor reporting. The math is simple. The inputs are where the dishonesty lives.

Common fudge
Excluding planned downtime, scheduled changeovers, and breaks from "availability" — quietly inflating OEE by 8–15%.
02 The truth-teller · under-reported

First-pass yield. The number behind the scrap line.

FPY = Units made right the first time / Units started

First-pass yield captures something your scrap totals miss: the units that almost shipped before someone caught them. It's the single best leading indicator of whether your process is actually under control.

Common fudge
Counting reworked units as "first-pass" because they eventually shipped — masking real process drift for months.
03 The customer's view

On-time-in-full. The number your customer is keeping.

OTIF = Orders shipped complete & on date / Total orders

On-time-in-full is what your customer is actually scoring you on. The difference between "on-time" and "on-time-in-full" is where partial shipments quietly destroy customer relationships you thought were healthy.

Common fudge
Splitting orders into multiple shipments to count each "fulfilled" separately — passes the audit, fails the customer.
04 The reality check

Cost per good unit. The metric that catches the lies.

CPGU = Total cost of goods / First-pass yield units

Cost per good unit is the metric that exposes every "efficiency improvement" that didn't actually help. When OEE goes up but CPGU also goes up, something is wrong with the OEE number — not with your accounting.

Common fudge
Reporting cost per unit shipped (including reworked) instead of cost per good unit — hiding the real cost of poor first-pass quality.
02 · Honest about what it isn't

The shorter list: what's not in this guide.

We respect your inbox and your time. Here's everything this download will not trigger.

If "no upsell" is a hard sell, that says something about the rest of the category. We mean it.

  • A seven-email nurture sequence.
  • A phone call from a sales rep "checking in."
  • A retargeting cookie that follows you across the web.
  • An automatic enrollment in our newsletter.
  • A "you've been selected for an executive briefing" email.
  • A LinkedIn connection request from anyone named Brad.
  • A free trial of FactoryView (we don't have one — call us instead).
03 · Get the guide

Four metrics. One PDF. Delivered on the call.

The guide is hand-delivered on a 30-minute discovery call. Book the call, we'll bring the PDF, and you'll get something more useful than an inbox attachment: a half hour with a manufacturing engineer who'll walk you through how the four metrics apply to your plant.

If it's a fit, we keep talking. If it isn't, you still walk away with the guide and the conversation. Either way, no nurture sequence and no follow-up sales tower.

Book the discovery call

30 minutes · With a real engineer · No deck, no pitch

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