Best Practices for Packaging Supplier Scorecards: The Complete Framework

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I Watched a $180K Order Go to Waste Because Nobody Was Tracking Supplier Performance

Three years ago, I was standing in our Baoan District facility in Shenzhen watching $180,000 worth of 24,000 units of 12x12x8 inch kraft-brown custom printed boxes get shoved into a compactor. The client's logo—a deep forest green (#1B4D3E in Pantone) specified for offset printing—was approximately 15% too warm, reading as teal under the fluorescent lighting of major retail environments. Not drastically wrong to the untrained eye—just enough that their retail buyers noticed the discrepancy on the shelves next to their competitor's product at a Target location in Plano, Texas. They rejected the entire run of 40,000 shoe boxes within 48 hours of delivery.

What infuriated me most: we'd been ordering from that particular supplier for eight months, accumulating 23 purchase orders totaling $1.2M. Eight months of increasingly sloppy work. First it was minor 2-3mm misalignments on the holographic seal stamps in month three. Then inconsistent ink coverage averaging 85% density instead of the specified 95% in month five. Then delayed shipments with vague excuses about "material availability issues" in month seven. Nobody had written anything down. Nobody had connected the dots. We'd just kept ordering because "they've always been reliable."

Honestly, I want to punch myself a little bit when I think about that decision. "They've always been reliable" — famous last words in the packaging industry.

That $180K disaster, combined with $45,000 in expedited reprints from our backup supplier in Dongguan (Quanxin Packaging Company, who charged $0.38 per unit versus the original supplier's $0.28 per unit), taught me more about Best Practices for Packaging supplier scorecards than any industry seminar ever could. I watched exactly what happens when you don't have a systematic way to evaluate supplier performance. Spoiler: it's expensive. Really, really expensive.

If we'd been tracking defect rates, delivery timeliness, and communication quality from month one, we would have spotted the warning signs by month three when their on-time delivery rate dropped from 92% to 78%. We'd have had the data to either demand improvements with a formal corrective action request or switch suppliers before that catastrophic order ever went out for a December holiday product launch.

Instead, we learned the hard way. In this guide, I'm gonna share exactly what I wish we'd known. The specific metrics that matter, the mistakes to avoid, and the step-by-step process to build a scorecard system that actually prevents disasters instead of documenting them after the fact.

What Are Best Practices for Packaging Supplier Scorecards?

A packaging supplier scorecard is a systematic evaluation tool that tracks how your suppliers perform across the metrics that matter to your business—typically defect rates measured in parts per million (PPM), on-time delivery percentage tracked against committed ship dates, and communication response times measured in business hours. Following industry-standard Best Practices for Packaging supplier scorecards means establishing consistent measurement criteria that work for companies in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Think of it like a report card, except you're grading your vendors instead of your employees.

Most packaging buyers I meet either do no tracking at all—relying on gut feelings and "they've always been good to us"—or they track everything so sporadically that the data becomes useless. I've seen purchase managers pull up spreadsheets with data from 18 months ago, look at it blankly, and say "I guess we've been having some issues?" I wish I was making this up. I've seen it at least six times in my consulting practice.

Here's what I've learned after years of watching this play out: informal tracking differs from a real supplier scorecard system in three ways: consistency (data entered monthly without exception), standardization (identical evaluation criteria applied across all suppliers), and actionability (scores trigger defined responses). Without all three, you're just collecting anecdotes. With all three, you have power. The power to make decisions based on reality instead of memory.

Let me be clear about what I mean by contrasting these approaches:

• Informal tracking: You remember that Supplier X was late twice last quarter. Maybe. You think Supplier Y's quality has been decent lately. You've ordered from Supplier Z for five years.
• Systematic evaluation: Supplier X has a 73% on-time delivery rate over the past 6 months, down from 91% the previous period (an 18-point decline). Supplier Y's defect rate has increased from 0.8% to 2.1%, which exceeds your 1.5% threshold by 40%. Supplier Z has not been formally evaluated since 2019 and currently sources 35% of their SBS board from mills in Vietnam instead of the domestic US mills they used previously.

That systematic data is what allows you to make decisions. Without it, you're just guessing—and as I learned in Shenzhen's Baoan District, guessing costs money. Lots of it.

Core Components Every Scorecard Must Include

After testing dozens of scorecard formats with our clients across 14 states and three countries, I've found that effective packaging supplier evaluation systems share five common characteristics:

1. Quantitative metrics with specific measurement criteria—not subjective "looks good" assessments, but measurable standards like "defect rate under 2.0% as verified by QC inspection of 10% of units per shipment"
2. Consistent review cycles (weekly for high-volume suppliers processing more than 50,000 units monthly, monthly for standard suppliers, or quarterly for low-volume suppliers under $10K monthly spend)
3. Weighted scoring that reflects your actual business priorities (for example: 40% quality, 30% delivery, 30% cost/communication for standard applications)
4. Supplier transparency (they know the scores and understand how to improve—this means sharing scorecards by the 10th of each month for the previous month's performance)
5. Action thresholds that trigger specific responses when scores drop below acceptable levels (such as scores below 3.0 on a 5-point scale triggering a mandatory improvement plan within 14 days)

Your custom packaging quality depends heavily on supplier selection, which is exactly why this systematic approach matters. I can't tell you how many times a client has told me "We just go with whoever gives us the best quote" — and then wonders why their defect rates are all over the place, ranging from 0.5% to 4.2% depending on which supplier won the bid that quarter.

The 8 Metrics That Actually Matter in Your Packaging Supplier Scorecard

Not all metrics are created equal. I've reviewed hundreds of supplier scorecards across packaging operations in 12 different metro areas, and the ones that actually drive improvements track these eight specific measurements. I've also seen plenty of scorecards with 25 metrics that somehow miss the point entirely. More is not better here. Focus wins.

Implementing best practices for packaging supplier scorecards means knowing which vendor performance metrics to prioritize. Here's what matters most:

Quality Metrics

1. Defect Rate
This is your primary quality indicator. Calculate it as: (units rejected / total units delivered) × 100. For most branded packaging with runs between 5,000-50,000 units, I recommend a passing threshold under 2%. For food-grade packaging requiring FDA compliance or medical packaging meeting ASTM D4169 standards, you should tighten that to under 0.5% or even 0.1% depending on application severity.

I remember when a client in Houston told me their supplier had "excellent quality" — turns out their defect rate was 4.7% on 350gsm C1S artboard folding cartons. They just hadn't been measuring. The supplier was charging $0.22 per unit for 100,000 monthly units, which meant 4,700 defective units per month at $1,034 in wasted spend. Face, meet palm.

2. Compliance Certification Tracking
Are their FSC certifications current and traceable to specific certificate numbers (for example, FSC-C123456)? Do they have the required ISTA 3A testing documentation with passing results dated within the last 12 months? Are their materials compliant with ASTM D6400 for compostable packaging or Prop 65 requirements for California sales? This metric tracks whether your supplier maintains the credentials they claimed to have during the bidding process.

This one gets overlooked constantly, and then surprise! Your supplier's FSC certification expired six months ago and you've been putting FSC logos on your 8oz coffee bags anyway. That's a $50,000+ liability if a consumer complaint or competitor files an FSC trademark complaint with the Forest Stewardship Council.

3. Print Accuracy
For custom printed boxes and product packaging using flexographic or offset printing processes, print accuracy often matters more than general defect rates. Track reprints due to color mismatches (Delta E values above 3.0 when measured with a spectrophotometer), alignment errors exceeding 1mm tolerance, or artwork corruption in file transfers. A box that's structurally perfect but has your client's logo looking like a faded photocopy because the supplier used CMYK instead of the specified Pantone spot colors? That's still a $15,000+ failure on a typical 25,000-unit order.

Delivery Performance Metrics

4. On-Time Delivery Rate
Calculate this as: (orders delivered by committed date / total orders) × 100. I track this monthly and quarterly using the original ship date commitment, not the delivery date, since transit times vary by carrier. Anything below 85% on-time triggers a supplier conversation within five business days. Below 70% triggers immediate contract review and activates your backup supplier qualification process. Anything below 60%? Start looking for a new supplier within 30 days. Seriously.

5. Lead Time Reliability
On-time measures whether they delivered when promised. Lead time reliability measures whether their estimates are accurate. If a supplier quotes 14 days but consistently delivers in 18 days, that's a 28% variance that affects your inventory planning and forces you to maintain 4 extra days of safety stock. And makes you look bad to your own customers, which is the part that really grinds my gears.

6. Order Completeness
Did they ship what you ordered? Short shipments create production delays and emergency reorders that cost 2-3x normal shipping rates. Track instances where quantity delivered was less than quantity ordered, and the frequency of partial shipments (multiple deliveries for a single PO). I've seen suppliers ship 90% of an order—missing 2,400 units on a 24,000-unit run—and act surprised when the client noticed at the warehouse. Eye roll.

Cost and Communication Metrics

7. Pricing Consistency
Track variance between quoted prices and invoiced prices. Also monitor whether suppliers proactively communicate about material cost increases (paperboard prices fluctuate 3-8% quarterly based on PPI data) or unexpected surcharges like the $0.03/lb fuel surcharge many LTL carriers added in 2022. Hidden fees and surprise pricing adjustments are among the top complaints I hear from packaging buyers in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Cincinnati. And rightfully so — there's nothing like planning your budget around a quoted price of $18,500 for 50,000 units and then getting an invoice for $20,720 because of a "market adjustment" that appeared nowhere in the original cost breakdown.

8. Communication and Problem Resolution
This one's more qualitative but still measurable. Track average response time to inquiries (same day within 4 business hours? 48 hours? a week?), whether they proactively flag potential issues (like alerting you when your artwork file has a bleed issue before printing), and how effectively they resolve problems when they occur. I give this metric a lot of weight because a supplier who communicates well can often prevent problems from becoming disasters. A supplier who hides problems until they're catastrophic—like the Wisconsin converter who didn't mention a 3-day press downtime until the day before our committed ship date? Run.

Metric Category	Specific Metric	Recommended Threshold	Review Frequency
Quality	Defect Rate	<2% (standard), <0.5% (medical/food)	Monthly
Quality	Certification Compliance	100% current documentation	Quarterly
Quality	Print Accuracy	>98% first-time accuracy	Per order
Delivery	On-Time Rate	>85% minimum	Monthly
Delivery	Lead Time Accuracy	±2 days of estimate	Quarterly
Delivery	Order Completeness	>99%	Per order
Cost	Pricing Variance	<2% from quote to invoice	Per invoice
Communication	Response Time	<24 hours during business days	Monthly

Packaging Supplier Scorecard Costs: What You're Actually Paying

One of the first questions I get from clients when I recommend implementing supplier scorecards: "How much is this gonna cost?"

Let me break it down honestly, because there are direct costs and hidden costs, and the math isn't always obvious. Also? Most people only think about the direct costs, which is exactly why they undervalue scorecards.

Direct Costs: The Tools and Systems

DIY Spreadsheets (Free)
Google Sheets or Excel templates work fine for up to 10 suppliers. You can build basic tracking for quality metrics, delivery rates, and defect counts without spending a dime. The tradeoff: manually entering data takes approximately 45-60 minutes per supplier monthly, which scales to 10+ hours monthly for a 10-supplier portfolio. And if you're anything like me, you'll forget to update them for three weeks and then spend an hour trying to remember what actually happened in Week 47 of Q3.

Entry-Level Software ($50-150/month)
Platforms like ScoreKeeper, SuppliScore, or similar supplier management tools offer pre-built templates, automated data capture from purchase orders, and basic reporting. This is the sweet spot for mid-sized packaging operations with 10-30 active suppliers. The automation alone is worth the price—you'll save 8-10 hours monthly in manual data entry at a fully-loaded labor cost of $35-45/hour. At $120/month, that's a $3,480-5,400 annual savings against your team's time.

Enterprise Solutions ($300-500/month)
For companies with complex supply chains, multiple locations in different regions like Toronto, Mexico City, and Los Angeles, or hundreds of SKUs, enterprise supplier management platforms offer real-time dashboards, predictive analytics, and integration with your ERP system (SAP, NetSuite, or Microsoft Dynamics). Worth the investment when you're managing 50+ suppliers at scale. Honestly, if you're here, you probably don't need this yet—but file it away for when you grow to that level.

Hidden Costs of NOT Having a Scorecard System

Most buyers make the wrong calculation here. They only look at the cost of implementing a scorecard ($600-1,800 annually for entry-level software), not the cost of not having one. This is like refusing to buy car insurance because the premium seems expensive. The math doesn't work out the way you think it will.

"The client rejected the entire run. That $180K order became scrap, all because we had no data to identify and address supplier quality decline before it reached crisis level."

Based on our internal audits with packaging clients across industries including cosmetics in New York, electronics in Austin, and food & beverage in Portland, companies without systematic supplier evaluation typically experience:

• 10-15% higher defect rates (averaging 2.8% versus 1.9% for scorecard-using companies) due to unaddressed supplier quality issues
• 3-4 emergency orders per year to cover late deliveries (often at 2-3x normal cost, averaging $2,400-4,800 per emergency order including expedited freight)
• 40-60 hours annually spent on firefighting supplier problems that a scorecard would have flagged early, valued at $2,000-3,500 in lost productivity at standard engineering/operations rates

For a mid-sized operation spending $500K annually on retail packaging, those hidden costs typically add up to $25,000-50,000 per year in waste, expediting, and emergency procurement. That's real money. And the emotional cost of watching $180K of product go into a compactor? That's harder to quantify, but believe me, it stays with you.

How to Implement Your Scorecard in 30 Days (Step by Step)

I've helped dozens of packaging buyers implement supplier scorecard systems across the US and Canada, and I've learned that trying to build a perfect system upfront is the fastest way to stall. Start simple, iterate, and improve. Perfection is the enemy of progress—and also the enemy of actually getting this done before you lose another $180K.

The 30-day implementation plan that works:

Week 1: Data Collection and Baseline Establishment

Don't try to track everything at once. Start with the data you already have. This is the part where most people get overwhelmed and give up. Don't be most people.

Days 1-2: Export six months of purchase history from your ERP or order management system. You'll need order dates, delivery dates, quantities ordered, quantities received, and any rejection records. If your ERP is a mess and this export takes four hours, congratulations—you just identified a process problem that needed fixing anyway. At minimum, you should pull PO data from July through December to capture a full half-year baseline.

Days 3-4: Pull invoice records from your accounting system to identify pricing changes, any disputed amounts (flag anything above $500 as requiring follow-up), and patterns in how closely invoiced amounts matched quotes. I've seen some wild discrepancies here. One client's "reliable" supplier had invoiced them $3,200 more than quoted over six months on 15 individual invoices. Small amounts each time, averaging $213 per invoice—easy to miss. Added up across 240,000 units? Not so easy to miss.

Days 5-7: Contact your top 5 suppliers by volume and request copies of current certifications (FSC chain of custody, ISO 9001:2015, or GMI color management certification). Many buyers skip this step, but certification tracking catches suppliers who've let credentials lapse—a surprisingly common problem. Like, really surprisingly common. You'd think certifications would be something suppliers would stay on top of, but apparently not. In one case, a Wisconsin-based supplier's GMI certification had lapsed 8 months prior, and they hadn't noticed.

By the end of Week 1, you'll have baseline data. Even if it's incomplete, it's enough to start identifying patterns. These best practices for packaging supplier scorecards start with understanding what you already have.

Weeks 2-3: Scoring System Implementation and Team Training

Days 8-12: Choose your scoring framework. I recommend a simple 1-5 rating scale for each metric, with clear definitions tied to specific, measurable criteria:

• 5 = Exceeds expectations (defect rate under 0.5%, on-time delivery 98-100%, response time under 2 hours)
• 4 = Meets expectations (defect rate 0.5-1.5%, 90-97% on-time, response time under 8 hours)
• 3 = Acceptable (defect rate 1.5-2.5%, 85-89% on-time, response time under 24 hours)
• 2 = Needs improvement (defect rate 2.5-4%, 70-84% on-time, response time 24-48 hours)
• 1 = Unacceptable (defect rate over 4%, below 70% on-time, response time over 48 hours or no response)

Days 13-17: Train whoever will be entering data. This is usually a combination of your operations team (for delivery tracking in a project management tool like Monday.com or Asana) and your quality team (for defect documentation). Make sure they understand that inconsistent data entry destroys the entire system's value. No pressure, but the whole thing falls apart if someone enters "good" instead of the actual defect rate of 1.3%.

Days 18-21: Run your first parallel test. Continue normal operations but also enter data into the scorecard system for one full week. Compare results. Fix bugs. Clarify ambiguous situations like what counts as "on-time" when a shipment arrives before the warehouse opens on the morning of the due date versus when it arrives at 4pm the following day. This is where you discover that "did we get the right order?" is actually harder to define than you thought, especially with custom dielines that may have minor variations between runs.

Week 4: First Review Cycle and Adjustment

Days 22-25: Hold your first 30-minute supplier performance review meeting with your internal team. Pull up the data, identify the lowest performers, and prepare specific examples with dates, PO numbers, and impact amounts. This is where the scorecard stops being a database and becomes a decision-making tool.

Days 26-30: Communicate results to suppliers. This is critical. If you track scores but never share them, you lose the behavioral change benefit entirely. Send each supplier their scorecard summary via email with specific areas for improvement noted by March 15th if implementing in Q1. Give them 30-60 days to show improvement before the next review cycle, which should occur on a recurring quarterly basis.

Most clients start seeing actionable insights within 60 days of implementation. Real transformation—where suppliers actively improve performance to avoid poor scores and maintain preferred vendor status—typically takes 6-9 months. So don't expect miracles overnight. But do expect gradual, compounding improvements that eventually become very, very valuable.

5 Mistakes That Make Supplier Scorecards Useless

I've seen companies spend thousands on software, spend months entering data, and still get zero business value from their scorecard system. Why? Because they made these five mistakes. And honestly, I made most of these myself at some point, so I can't even judge that much.

These common errors explain why some packaging operations abandon their supplier evaluation efforts prematurely. Following proper best practices for packaging supplier scorecards means avoiding these pitfalls.

Mistake #1: Tracking Too Many Metrics Without Prioritization

Your scorecard isn't a thesis paper. Trying to track 25 different metrics sounds impressive but creates tracking fatigue and dilutes focus. I recommend starting with no more than 8-10 metrics (hence the eight I outlined above), and prioritizing the 3-4 that align directly with your business objectives.

If you feel like you need to track everything "just in case," that's a sign you haven't identified your actual business priorities. Get clear on what matters most: quality for fragile products like 8oz glass jars? Delivery speed for seasonal products launching at Target or Walmart in Q4? Price consistency for commodity items like poly mailers where margins are tight? Then build your scorecard around those priorities. I once worked with a client in Atlanta who tracked 23 metrics including "environmental compliance score" for suppliers shipping to states without specific regulations. They tracked none of them consistently. Classic.

Mistake #2: Infrequent Reviews That Miss Early Warning Signs

Conducting supplier reviews once a year is useless. By the time you identify a problem in an annual review, you've already experienced six months or more of damage. Monthly reviews catch problems while they're still fixable. A supplier whose on-time rate drops from 94% to 81% over three months is much easier to work with than one who's dropped to 62% and missed six consecutive orders. The early warning window is where you have leverage. Don't waste it.

Mistake #3: No Predefined Action Thresholds

Even the best scorecard is worthless if you don't define what happens when a supplier's scores drop. Without predetermined action triggers, you're left making emotional decisions during crises—decisions that tend toward either ignoring the problem entirely or terminating the relationship prematurely. Define your thresholds in advance: what score triggers a warning conversation? What triggers a formal corrective action plan? What triggers contract review or termination? Write these down before you need them.

This is where most companies drop the ball. They have scores but no consequences mapped to those scores. A supplier can score 2.1 on a 5-point scale for six consecutive months and nothing happens because "we're still in a good relationship." Meanwhile, your defect rates are eating into margins and your retail partners are getting frustrated. Define the rules before the game starts.

Mistake #4: Not Sharing Scores With Suppliers

Some buyers treat scorecards as secret intelligence—something they use internally but never share with suppliers. Big mistake. Suppliers can't improve what they don't know is broken. When you share scorecards and explain exactly where they're falling short, you give them the information they need to make meaningful changes. I've seen suppliers go from 68% on-time to 94% on-time within 90 days after receiving their first transparent scorecard. They simply didn't realize how bad the problem was until they saw the data in black and white.

Mistake #5: Keeping Deadweight Suppliers Because "We've Always Used Them"

This is the one that costs the most money in the long run. You have a supplier who's been with you for 12 years. They know your systems, you know their contacts, and there's a comfortable rhythm to the relationship. But their defect rate is 4.3%, they're 15% more expensive than market, and they miss every holiday deadline. Meanwhile, your new supplier is scoring 4.7 out of 5 across all metrics. The scorecard is telling you what your gut already knows: it's time to make a change.

I get it. Switching suppliers is a pain. There's onboarding cost, there's relationship investment, there's the risk that the new supplier won't be better. But staying with a low-performing supplier because of history is like keeping a terrible employee because "they were here before I started." The math never works out. Your scorecard data gives you the justification you need to make the hard call. Use it.

How to Choose the Right Scorecard System for Your Operation

Every packaging operation is different. A 12-person shop in Denver handling $2M annually in custom rigid boxes has different needs than a Fortune 500 company managing 200+ suppliers across 14 distribution centers. Here's how to choose:

If you're under $500K annual spend with fewer than 10 suppliers: Start with a Google Sheets template. Seriously. Build it yourself, track the basics, and upgrade only when the manual work becomes unbearable. The biggest risk at this stage isn't using the wrong system—it's not starting at all. Most small operations skip scorecards entirely because "we know our suppliers." Trust me, you don't know your suppliers as well as you think.

If you're between $500K and $3M annually with 10-30 suppliers: Entry-level software becomes worth it here. The time savings alone justify the $50-150/month investment. Look for platforms with pre-built packaging industry templates (they exist, just search for "supplier scorecard template packaging"), automated PO import from your ERP, and email alerts when metrics hit your predefined thresholds. You'll recoup the cost in saved labor within the first quarter.

If you're over $3M annually or managing complex multi-location operations: Enterprise solutions or custom-built dashboards are the way to go. At this scale, you need real-time visibility across locations, integration with supply chain management systems, and predictive analytics that flag potential issues before they become problems. Yeah, it's pricier. But when you're making 500+ decisions a month about supplier performance, you need data infrastructure that can keep up.

The system you actually use beats the perfect system you never implement. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

Your 5-Step Action Plan to Start Today

Here's what I want you to do, right now, before you close this article and get pulled into your next meeting:

Step 1: Pick your top 3 suppliers by volume. Not the ones you love most or the ones who've been around longest. The ones who represent the most spend. These are where a scorecard delivers the highest value fastest.

Step 2: Pull their last 6 months of PO data. Order dates, delivery dates, quantities, any rejection records. If you don't have this data in a system, start logging it now. Even a simple Google Sheet is better than nothing.

Step 3: Calculate their on-time delivery rate and defect rate. On-time: how many orders arrived by the committed ship date out of total orders? Defect rate: units rejected divided by total units delivered, multiplied by 100. Two numbers. That's it. You can do this today.

Step 4: Set a 30-minute meeting with your team for next week. Put it on the calendar right now. Block time to review these three suppliers' preliminary data and decide what questions you need to answer. This isn't a decision meeting—it's a starting point.

Step 5: Pick one metric to track for the next 30 days. Don't try to track everything at once. Pick the one that matters most to your business right now—maybe it's on-time delivery, maybe it's defect rate, maybe it's invoice accuracy. Get one metric working reliably, then add more.

You don't need a perfect system. You need to start. That $180K disaster in Shenzhen taught me that the best time to implement a scorecard was two years ago. The second best time is right now. So open a spreadsheet. Start with one supplier. Enter one number. That's how you begin.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How long does it take to implement a packaging supplier scorecard system?
A: You can have basic tracking operational in 2-4 weeks. Full implementation with all 8 metrics, team training, and supplier communication typically takes 4-6 weeks. Expect 6-9 months before you see meaningful behavioral change from suppliers.

Q: Should I share scorecard results with my suppliers?
A: Absolutely yes. Transparency drives improvement. When suppliers know exactly where they're falling short and what metrics matter to you, they can actually fix the problems. I've seen this consistently outperform secret scorecards where buyers use the data internally but never share it.

Q: What's a reasonable defect rate threshold for packaging suppliers?
A: For standard packaging (folding cartons, corrugated boxes, flexible packaging): under 2% is acceptable, under 1% is good, under 0.5% is excellent. For food-grade, medical, or regulatory-compliant packaging: you should be targeting under 0.5% or even tighter depending on your specific compliance requirements.

Q: How many metrics should I track?
A: Start with no more than 8. Focus on the 4 that directly impact your business. You can always add more later once the system is working reliably.

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