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Measure the share of demand you actually served — by unit and by order line.
Fill rate is the scoreboard your safety stock is playing for. Every buffer decision, every service-level assumption, every expedite eventually shows up here as a percentage. It is also the metric most often quoted in a way that hides bad news — which is why it is worth calculating two ways.
Unit fill rate
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Share of requested units you shipped complete and on time.
Your numbers
The formula
Unit fill rate = Units shipped ÷ Units ordered · Line fill rate = Lines filled complete ÷ Lines ordered
Unit fill rate flatters you; line fill rate is what the customer experiences.
What it means
Stockout — full definition
Read in the glossaryCount what was requested, not what you accepted. Demand you refused to take is still demand you failed to serve.
Count shipments as on time against the date the customer asked for, not the date you promised after the fact.
Calculate line fill alongside unit fill — a large order shipped 95% complete still arrives as an incomplete order.
Unit fill rate is systematically kinder than line fill rate, because a handful of big lines shipped in full can carry many small ones that shipped short. Report both or you will not see the problem.
Fill rate measured only on orders you accepted is a vanity metric. Lost quotes and refused orders belong in the denominator.
Worked example
4,750 of 5,000 units shipped is a 95.0% unit fill rate — respectable. But if 28 of 420 order lines went out incomplete, line fill is 93.3%, and 28 customers had a conversation about it. Both figures are accurate; only one predicts the complaints.
No. Service level in the safety-stock formula is the probability of not stocking out during a replenishment cycle. Fill rate measures the share of demand actually served. The first is an input to planning; the second is the outcome.
Not in on-time fill rate. Track them as a separate recovery metric, otherwise a chronically late operation can report near-perfect fill.
Set it by item class and customer contract, not globally. Chasing 99% across a long C-class tail costs far more in inventory than the service is worth.
This calculator works on one set of numbers. AWRA OpsHub keeps order fill rate calculator results current across every item, supplier and location — automatically.
Size the buffer that protects you from demand and lead-time swings.
Work out how many days your current stock will last at today’s demand.
Turn delivery, quality and price data into one comparable supplier score.