Keep every eligible assignment visible, including refusals, exceptions, fallback production and unfinished work.
| Metric | Proposed definition | Necessary companion measure |
|---|---|---|
| First-pass acceptance | First submissions accepted without required production correction ÷ first submissions receiving a carrier review | Unreviewed first submissions and review backlog |
| Material-error file rate | Independently audited first submissions containing at least one material or critical defect ÷ independently audited first submissions | Severity, defect direction and inspection-source breakdown |
| Accepted-file yield | Distinct accepted files ÷ all eligible assignments in the defined cohort | Open, declined, withdrawn and fallback-completed files |
| Post-acceptance defect rate | Audited accepted files subsequently found to contain material defects ÷ accepted files audited | Observation window and sampling method |
| Review effort | All carrier checking and correction minutes for the cohort ÷ accepted files | Median and tail effort, plus hours by activity |
| Elapsed usable-file time | Time from assignment receipt to carrier acceptance | Median, 90th percentile and outstanding-file age |
| Production turnaround | Time from agreed input-readiness event to production delivery | Readiness delays, paused time and reasons |
| Total cost per accepted file | All attributable cohort costs ÷ distinct accepted files in that cohort | Cost per assignment and remaining-work exposure |
A carrier reviewer silently fixing a required production defect counts as a first-pass failure. A correctly escalated exception is a successful escalation, but not automatically an accepted production file.
For a multi-route operating model, include fallback completion in the model’s total costs and final acceptance results. Separately report the supplier’s own delivery and refusal outcomes so fallback work cannot disguise supplier limitations.
How do you separate inspection defects from production defects?
Use an inspection rework root-cause log with separate fields for:
- Origin: inspection, production, carrier-rule ambiguity, integration or unknown.
- Detection point: intake, supplier QA, carrier review or post-acceptance audit.
- Detection obligation: who should have identified the issue, and when.
- Remediation owner and cost bearer: which may differ from the originator.
For example, missing measurements may originate with the inspection partner. If the producer invents a quantity rather than escalating the gap, record an additional production defect. If the producer correctly rejects incomplete input, preserve the delay in end-to-end reporting without misclassifying the rejection as an estimating error.