Easy Metrics Launches Targeted Cost to Serve (TCTS), a Workload-Adjusted Metric for Warehouse Cost Performance
Easy Metrics, the Bellevue, Washington–based leader in Warehouse Performance Management, has announced the launch of Targeted Cost to Serve (TCTS) — a new operational financial metric built to help warehouse, supply chain, and finance leaders measure cost performance against the actual complexity of the workload their facilities handled, rather than against static, forecast-based budgets.
The problem the company is targeting is a familiar one. Warehouse financial reporting has traditionally compared operational spend to budgets set months in advance on forecasted assumptions — yet real-world warehouse workflows rarely match those forecasts. Order profiles shift, product mix changes, and process complexity fluctuates, leaving operations teams evaluated against numbers that no longer reflect the work they were actually asked to perform.
"TCTS changes the conversation."
— Dan Keto, President & CTO, Easy MetricsAccording to Keto, operations teams are too often judged against budgets that were never adjusted for the work actually performed. With TCTS, he explained, the question shifts away from whether a facility hit a fixed budget and toward whether the operation executed efficiently relative to the true workload complexity it managed.
How TCTS Works: A Dynamic, Earned Budget
At its core, TCTS creates a workload-adjusted earned budget that continuously reflects the operational work actually performed. Unlike conventional cost-per-unit metrics, TCTS recalculates the targeted operational cost in real time based on live conditions — including order profile, process complexity, product mix, and workflow variability. The output is a single comparative number that lets finance and operations leaders evaluate facilities fairly across an entire network, regardless of how different their workloads may be.
Keto describes TCTS as one truthful number for governing cost performance — bridging the gap between operational reality and financial reporting in a way traditional warehouse KPIs cannot.
— Paraphrasing Dan Keto, President & CTO, Easy MetricsWhat It Means for 3PLs, Retailers, and Manufacturers
For third-party logistics providers (3PLs), TCTS unlocks customer-level cost transparency and visibility into contract margins across constantly changing service requirements — making it easier to see which accounts are genuinely profitable at contracted rates. For retailers, manufacturers, and distributors, the metric offers a workload-adjusted framework for measuring operational efficiency and financial performance across fulfillment networks.
Easy Metrics is currently demonstrating Targeted Cost to Serve with select enterprise customers across distribution, retail, manufacturing, and third-party logistics operations. The launch builds on the company's cloud-based warehouse performance management platform, which unifies operational data to deliver real-time visibility across warehouse networks.
New metric launched. Easy Metrics has introduced Targeted Cost to Serve (TCTS), a financial metric that measures warehouse cost performance against actual workload complexity instead of static budgets.
Earned budgets, not forecasts. TCTS builds a workload-adjusted earned budget that dynamically reflects the work a facility was actually asked to do, addressing the mismatch between forecasted budgets and real warehouse workflows.
Real-time recalculation. Unlike cost-per-unit metrics, TCTS continuously recalculates targeted cost using live conditions — order profile, process complexity, product mix, and workflow variability — enabling fair facility-to-facility comparisons across a network.
Value for 3PLs and shippers. 3PLs gain customer-level cost transparency and contract margin visibility, while retailers, manufacturers, and distributors get a workload-adjusted view of efficiency across fulfillment networks.
Enterprise rollout underway. Easy Metrics is demonstrating TCTS with select enterprise customers across distribution, retail, manufacturing, and third-party logistics operations.