To find out how tall you are, get out your ruler. To find out how much you weigh, step on a scale. To find out how well your logistics operation is performing, try out the supply chain metric software.

Supply chain metric programs are being aggressively marketed to logistics managers who want to measure the efficacy of their operations within the context of the supply chain. Before you can improve your operations, vendors point out, you need to know where you stand right now. "A collection of metrics and performance information is one of the ways to get to a [higher] level of control and improved execution," notes Gary Cross, a practice leader for IBM's Supply Chain Consulting Practice in Armonk, N.Y.

Because of their potential to improve logistics operations, supply chain metric packages appear poised to become one of the hottest-selling applications in the software market. "This will be the fastest-growing category of software in the supply chain for the next four to five years," Cross predicts.

Although software that helps shippers evaluate their internal operations has long been available, supply chain metric software arose to meet a broader need: a demand for benchmarks that could be used by trading partners across an entire supply channel. "A supply chain network requires more comprehensive performance data [than an individual company does]," explains Kevin O'Marah, service director of supply chain strategies at the Boston-based firm AMR Research. "In the case of operations that take place within four walls, you can easily measure on-time delivery based on your own carrier reports. But a network of suppliers is so diffuse that it's hard to know how well you're doing. So supply chain metric software is emerging as a critical tool to make decisions on what orders to take and what levels of inventory to hold."

Typically, supply chain metric software gathers the initial data from other programs enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, warehouse management systems (WMS), transportation management systems (TMS), order management systems (OMS), and even spreadsheets. It deposits that information into a central database and compares data on performance against a pre-established set of benchmarks.

Because they focus on reports of critical activities or key performance indicators (KPIs), in industry parlance supply chain metric packages are sometimes confused with another type of software: supply chain event management. But there's a fundamental difference. Supply chain event management software tracks activities and sends out "alerts" when things go awry when a shipment is delayed, for instance, or when an item is found to be out of stock. Supply chain metric software, by contrast, compiles data on key performance indicators and compares the findings against industry or historical benchmarks. Companies can then determine whether their inventory turns or order cycle times meet or exceed standards of excellence.

"Supply chain event management and performance measurement look and smell a lot alike, but each has a different purpose," reports O'Marah. "Event management is how to address mishaps ... so it's firefighting. Performance measurement is oriented toward decision support with real-time report cards."

Although a number of WMS and ERP vendors are developing their own programs to measure the performance of an extended enterprise, a few best-of-breed software vendors have already brought their packages to market. One is SeeCommerce of Palo Alto, Calif. SeeCommerce used the Supply-Chain Council's SCOR (Supply Chain Operations Reference) model as the basis for its industry benchmarks. The SCOR model defines common supply chain management processes and standards for process performance.

SeeCommerce's suite of seven tools first aggregates data from ERP, WMS, and other applications. The program then performs root-cause analysis and applies its set of yardsticks to evaluate supply chain performance. The SeeCommerce package covers more than 20 metrics, including percentage of on-time deliveries, lot size deviations, percentage of inventory over or under safety stock levels, and total inventory turns. "We have the ability to measure and to understand the causality of problems and the ability to align business tactics to address exceptions," says Mike Mansbach, SeeCommerce's vice president of marketing and business development. "It moves a company from being reactive and transactional to being proactive and strategic."

The SeeCommerce package, however, does not come cheap. A company can expect to pay about $1 million for it a price that includes the suite of applications, implementation, and support services.

Like SeeCommerce, a second service provider Tilion of Maynard, Mass. has based its metrics on the SCOR model. Named for a J.R.R. Tolkien character known as "the steersman of the moon, who creates light out of darkness," Tilion collects transaction data from the multiple systems used by supply chain trading partners, analyzes the data, and then presents the key performance indicators in a Web-based format. "It's a Web-based series of analytics that help you measure the effectiveness of partners and suppliers across the supply chain," says Tilion spokesman Ed Harrison.

Among other performance measures, Tilion provides a supplier scorecard, a purchase-order life cycle analysis, and an inbound shipment analysis. Companies pay a regular subscription fee based on the scale and complexity of the service they request. For example, the cost to cover three business units (such as a contract manufacturer and two suppliers) for a 90-day period, including the installation, runs about $50,000, according to Stephen Geary, Tilion's vice president of product management.

Yet another vendor, the Stamford, Conn.-based market research firm Gartner Group, entered the market last November when it introduced a package called "Emetrix." The package provides performance benchmarks for a host of business activities, including logistics and supply chain management, for a variety of industries. Al Lill, a group vice president at Gartner, says "Emetrix" focuses on four overall metrics: customer responsiveness, supplier responsiveness, operational efficiency, and process throughput.

Unlike the vendors that based their systems on the SCOR model, the Gartner Group used its own industry knowledge to formulate the business performance measures incorporated into its software program, Lill says. "We're not trying to replace an MRP (materials requirements planning) or ERP package," he notes. "We want to sit on top of those systems." Gartner's package is priced at about $100,000.

But purchased software may not be the only avenue available to managers who want to analyze their supply chain operations. One consultant believes that enterprising logistics managers can do it themselves by adapting software from Categoric, a British vendor with U.S. offices in Sterling, Va. Phil Opal, president of Industrial Data and Information Inc. of Webbers Falls, Okla., thinks Categoric's alert-messaging software could be used to compile and summarize key performance indicators for benchmarking.

A Categoric representative confirms that the software has a trending analysis module that will log all "alert" messages into a separate database. "It provides tools to see what's occurred with all of the 'alerts,'" says Catherine Keightley, Categoric's director of U.S. marketing. She says the Categoric package costs about $10,000.

Despite its promise, supply chain metric software remains in the nascent stages of development, most analysts believe. "There's a lot of interest, and some companies are taking action," says IBM consultant Cross. "But as an overall category, it's still early in its life cycle."

Once the packages mature, however, they will become a competitive necessity in the global economy, warns one analyst. AMR's O'Marah believes that companies will be forced to embrace this type of software soon or be swept aside by their competitors. "Anybody who doesn't have this type of software will be puzzled as to why his or her supply chain costs are twice as high as everybody else's," he says. "Everybody will have this type of software in the long run."

If it lives up to its advance billing, such software could usher in sweeping changes in logistics operations. Armed with benchmarking information on their own logistics performance, companies could analyze their supply chains and implement whatever operational changes they might need to achieve the Holy Grail of excellence. "Putting in place the tools to collect information is the way to guide the transformation," notes IBM consultant Cross. "If you have performance metrics, then you're able to intelligently navigate your way through performance improvements."