Why Labor Productivity Gains Don’t Translate to Cost-to-Serve Results

Originally recorded for the Supply Chain Insights podcast, this episode features a conversation between Lora Cecere, founder of Supply Chain Insights, and Dan Keto, Co-Founder and President of Easy Metrics. Together, they explore why most warehouse and distribution operations still struggle with cost-to-serve visibility—and why traditional labor productivity metrics fail to explain true operational performance. The discussion introduces a Warehouse Performance Management perspective on unifying labor, workflow, and operational data to understand unit economics across complex, multi-facility and 3PL environments.

What if the labor productivity gains you're measuring aren't actually translating to cost savings?

In this episode, host Dan Keto, Co-founder and President of EasyMetrics, slips into the guest chair and chats with Lora Cecere to explore why you should unify your warehouse data across multiple WMS platforms and third-party operations, how you can implement true activity-based costing to track cost-to-serve at the transaction level, and the key strategies to leverage labor management data as your foundation for AI-driven optimization. Whether you're wrestling with SKU variability, fragmented automation data, or the challenge of calculating true profitability by customer and workflow, this conversation is packed with actionable insights, from 30-day time-to-value implementations to identifying hidden inefficiencies that can immediately drive 5% cost reductions. Tune in to uncover why a unified data model isn't just a nice-to-have, but the critical foundation that separates operations leaders who are making smart, ROI-backed decisions from those throwing money at technology with no results.

What You’ll Learn:

Why labor productivity metrics alone fail to explain cost-to-serve
How SKU, order, and workflow variability distort traditional warehouse cost models
What Warehouse Performance Management enables that traditional LMS reporting cannot
Why unified labor and operational data is critical in multi-WMS and 3PL environments
How activity-based costing supports better operational and financial alignment
Why a unified data foundation must come before automation or AI initiatives

Lora Cecere is the host of the Supply Chain Insights podcast and Founder of Supply Chain Insights, a research and advisory firm specializing in supply chain performance optimization and operational excellence. With over 35 years of industry experience, including nine years as an industry analyst at Gartner, AMR Research, and Altimeter Group, plus 15 years building supply chain software and 20 years as a practitioner at companies including Procter & Gamble, Kraft, and Clorox. She brings unmatched depth to warehouse operations and cost-to-serve modeling.