What metrics go on an operations dashboard?

The best operations dashboards are disciplined: keep them to the 5 to 15 metrics you actually act on, not every number you can collect. A useful way to organize them is in four groups. Output metrics measure what the operation produces, throughput or units produced, orders fulfilled, on-time delivery rate, and cycle time. People metrics keep staffing healthy, coverage versus demand, shift attendance, onboarding status, and attrition. Risk metrics surface trouble early, SLA breaches, open incidents, compliance gaps, and backlog or aging. Cost metrics tie effort to money, cost per unit or order, labor efficiency, overtime, and margin by location. Pick the handful from each group that map to a real decision your team makes, and show each one against a target or trend so a glance tells you whether to act. Avoid vanity metrics that look impressive but change nothing you'd do. And whatever you choose, automate the data pull, an operations dashboard is only as trustworthy as it is current, so metrics that require manual updating will quietly go stale and lose the team's trust.