Order Processing Time Metrics

When orders feel slow, the clock is already telling you why

Order processing time is the difference between a clean day and a day that ends with panic at the dock. When processing times creep up, you do not just ship later. You start missing cutoffs, you trigger more customer questions, and you create backlogs that take days to unwind. The tricky part is that the operation can look busy and still be slow, because motion is not the same as flow.

That is why order processing time metrics matter. They take the vague feeling of "we are behind" and turn it into measurable stages, so you can see exactly where the day is getting stuck. When you know where the time is going, you can fix the right constraint instead of throwing labor at the end of the day and hoping for a better result tomorrow.

What "order processing time" should mean in a warehouse

Many teams define processing time as the time from order creation to shipment. That definition is too broad for operations, because order creation can happen hours before the warehouse is supposed to act. A more useful definition starts when the order is released to fulfillment and ends when it is completed and staged for carrier pickup. Inside that window, you track pick time, pack time, exception time, and staging time.

Those stages matter because they create a diagnostic trail. If pick time rises, you look at slotting, travel distance, replenishment, and batching. If pack time rises, you look at verification, supplies, and station capacity. If staging time rises, you look at dock workflow and pickup schedules. The power of order processing time metrics is that they tell you which lever to pull.

Why SLAs turn processing time into a business promise

Order processing time is not only an internal efficiency number. It is how you keep service level promises. Joel Malmquist, VP of Customer Experience at G10 Fulfillment, described the broader SLA scope that processing time supports. "An SLA is a Service Level Agreements for Receiving, Outbound, and B2B." That matters because outbound processing can be perfect and still fail if inbound inventory is not received and stowed quickly enough to be pickable.

For D2C, processing time has to support a cutoff. Malmquist described that cutoff in direct terms. "For D2C, which is an order through Shopify or on the merchant's website, if it's before noon, we're going to ship that order the same day." A processing time dashboard should show whether current workload can meet that cutoff today, not just whether it met it yesterday.

Why same-day expectations raise the stakes for processing time

Customers have been trained to expect speed, and brands are competing on that expectation whether they like it or not. That does not mean every order needs to ship in minutes. It does mean your processing time must be stable and predictable, because predictable is what lets you set promises confidently.

Connor Perkins, Director of Fulfillment at G10 Fulfillment, described the contrast brands see when they come from a slower operation. "I hear nowadays a lot of people want to offer you know same-day fulfillment for customers who place orders before specific times, which is something we do. But then I hear a customer say, 'A previous 3PL took three days from when the order was placed to when they would ship it.'" That gap is processing time drift, and it is one of the clearest reasons brands switch providers before the problem becomes permanent.

Receiving can inflate processing time before picking even starts

Processing time metrics often focus on pick and pack, but inbound can quietly create outbound delays. If inventory arrives and sits unreceived, the system may not show it as available, and orders may wait even though product is in the building. That is a processing delay caused by receiving throughput, not by outbound effort.

Malmquist described receiving SLAs in clock-based terms that map directly to the upstream part of processing time. "For receiving, the SLA is covers the time from the moment that we get a container on the dock with inventory in it, and how much time we have to count that in, and stow it away into the locations that we're going to pick from." When receiving metrics are visible and managed, outbound processing times become more stable because orders are not waiting on inventory to become pickable.

Pick time metrics expose layout and replenishment constraints

Pick time is usually the largest slice of order processing time, especially for multi-line orders. When pick time rises, it often means travel distance is too high, replenishment is not keeping up, or batching logic is not aligned with order profiles. Pick time should be segmented by order type, SKU count, and zone, because a single blended number will hide the operational reality that drives the increase.

Pick time also depends on inventory truth. If locations are wrong, pickers waste time searching, escalating, or waiting for replenishment. That is why pick time and inventory accuracy should be reviewed together, because slow picking is often a symptom of inaccurate inventory records, not only a labor issue.

Pack time metrics reveal whether verification is built into the flow

Packing is where speed and accuracy collide. If pack time is too low, you might be skipping verification. If pack time is too high, you might be under capacity or dealing with frequent exceptions. Pack time should therefore be reviewed alongside error rates and rework rates, because the goal is not maximum speed, it is dependable correctness.

Joel Malmquist described a level of accuracy that is hard to sustain without disciplined verification and scanning. "We have over 99.9% ship accuracy of these orders, which when you look at it on a unit level, such as unit shift versus unit errors, I almost couldn't believe it when I came here, how well we're doing on B2B shipping." A pack process that supports that accuracy usually includes enforced scans, clear exception rules, and a workflow that makes the correct step the easiest step.

Carrier handoff timing prevents a fake sense of completion

A common mistake is ending processing time at warehouse completion. Customers do not experience completion. They experience carrier movement. If the carrier does not scan the package quickly, the customer sees delay even if the warehouse finished on time.

Malmquist explained why he avoids using the word shipped in a way that implies carrier acceptance. "The reason I don't say ship is because sometimes it will be marked as completed, but the carrier doesn't actually pick it up right away, but the tracking goes back to Shopify." Processing time metrics should therefore include carrier acceptance time, or at least track the delta between completion and acceptance. That delta is where missed pickups, dock congestion, and staging discipline issues hide.

B2B processing time includes compliance work that D2C does not see

If you ship to retailers, processing time includes compliance tasks that do not exist in simple parcel D2C. Label type and placement, pallet build, routing guide adherence, and EDI or ASN transmission all take time, and they all have deadlines. If your processing time metrics ignore these tasks, you will be surprised by chargebacks and cancellations.

Bryan Wright, CTO and COO of G10 Fulfillment, described what makes B2B fundamentally different. "Our WMS system was written from day one around B2B, which is very different." He described the compliance steps that must be executed on time. "They have routing guides that make you specific labels on and put them in a specific place on the box, and you have to send EDI, ASN, electronic information in a timely fashion." Processing time metrics for B2B should track these milestones as part of the cycle, so the report reflects reality, not hope.

Why scan-based data makes processing time metrics trustworthy

Processing time metrics are only as good as the timestamps behind them. In a warehouse, the most trustworthy timestamps come from scan events, because scans record physical reality. Manual updates create timing drift and encourage storytelling.

Wright described the foundation of strong tracking. "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it." He explained why that matters for operations. "At any point in time, I know that Bobby has this product on fork 10 right now, and if I needed to go find that product, I just got to go find Bobby on fork 10." When your processing time metrics are built from scan events, you can trust them enough to use them for staffing, cutoffs, and continuous improvement.

Visibility turns processing time into a control system

Metrics are most useful when they are visible during the day. If you see pick time rising by noon, you can reassign labor, adjust batching, or prioritize certain orders before the cutoff passes. If you learn about the spike later, you are just writing a report about yesterday.

Maureen Milligan, Director of Operations and Projects at G10 Fulfillment, described what real-time portals change for customers and teams. "What these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility." She also described the direct experience of that visibility. "They can actually watch those progressions going on." When customers and account teams can see processing stages and aging in real time, they can communicate proactively and solve problems faster.

Where G10 fits if processing time is central to your customer promise

If you are competing on speed, or if you are expanding into retail where deadlines are strict, order processing time metrics cannot be a mystery. G10 focuses on scan-based execution, operational discipline across receiving and outbound, and customer-facing visibility designed to show where time is being spent. When processing time is clear, the operation can improve it systematically instead of relying on end-of-day heroics.

If you want to see how order processing time is measured in practice, ask for a walkthrough of a live day in the portal, including one exception case. You should be able to trace an order from release through pick, pack, staging, and carrier acceptance, so you can grow faster without turning fulfillment into a daily guessing game.