Companys approach to Inventory Health
February 12, 2025
American car companies are pursuing a very unique strategy to increase growth and profitability. Generally, when companies talk about increasing growth and profitability, they talk about exploring new markets and launching newer products. However, the American automotive industry is planning to do the exact opposite. Executives from Ford Motor Company have announced that within a […]
Managing businesses in highly competitive environment and in global scenario is highly complicated. What has made the global giants like IBM, HP, Dell, CISCO, GE, DHL, Fedex and many more companies hugely successful is the fact that they have built their Organizations on standard business processes that are refined and fine tuned to each local […]
Introduction After 1990s there was a major transformation in the commercial world. All the organizations across industry sectors have started using information technologies to maximize their productivity and profitability. Organizations started using technologies like mainframes, PCs, telecommunications and the internet along with the goods and services which they offered to the consumers. This process has […]
AT&T is one of the biggest phone companies in the world. In fact, this was the company that first started building telephones. On the other hand, Time Warner is a giant in the media space. It owns major media channels like HBO and CNN. Each of these companies is gigantic in their own right. This […]
Six Sigma has really become a management buzzword. A lot of people use it in very different contexts. As a result a variety of meanings have been conjured up for the very simple six sigma process. To simplify matters and to ensure that the readers have an accurate understanding of what the Six Sigma process […]
Inventory management operations are increasingly being outsourced to third party service providers, thereby ensuring that the investments and costs in managing the inventories are reduced. This is a welcome trend provided the companies focus on overseeing and reviewing both inventory management as well as inventory operations periodically to ensure proper controls are maintained and processes followed.
Inventory management entails study of data on movement of inventory, its demand pattern, supply cycles, sales cycles etc. Active management calls for continuous analysis and management of inventory items to target at lean m inventory Management.
Inventory Management function is carried out by the inventory planners in the company in close co ordination with procurement, supply chain logistics and finance, besides marketing departments.
The efficiencies of inventory management are largely dependent upon the skills and knowledge of the inventory planners, the focus and involvement of management and the management policies coupled with the inventory management system.
However inventory operations management is not under the control of the inventory management team but rests with the third party service providers. In this section of the article we aim to uncover few of the critical areas and action points on the part of operations that can impact the inventory of the company.
Every task and action required to be carried out by the operatives will impact the inventory as well as the delivery lead times and other parameters. Therefore knowledge of what one is required to do and the effect of the action should be known to the operatives who are on the shop floor.
For Example: If an operative is given a put away task, he should know how and where he should put away the pallet, how to scan the pallet ID and confirm it back to the system.
Besides he should also know the impact of not completing any of these actions or doing some thing wrong. The impact his action will have on the system as well as physical inventory should be clear to the operative.
Secondly different inventory items would have to be handled differently. Operatives who are carrying out the task should know why and what is required to be done. They should also know the consequences of not following the process.
A pallet might have to be scanned for the pallet id and put away on a floor location, while a carton might have to be opened and scanned for individual boxes inside and put away into a bin. The operatives should be trained on the entire process and understand why and what he is doing.
The WMS systems are quite operational and task intensive. Where the warehouses are being managed on RF based systems, the operatives should be able to manage the RF readers, understand how to access and complete transactions through the RF Guns.
Often it is noticed that when the warehouse operations are being managed by a third party service provider and the principle customer is not present at the location, the quality of staff and operatives is compromised and people are not given adequate training before being allocated their responsibility. Such situations can lead to inventory discrepancies.
However over a period of time, the nature of business requirements changes, resulting in change in the operating processes. These do not get documented in terms of amendments and the SOPs become outdated.
Thereafter one finds that the new comers who are introduced on the shop floor are required to learn the processes by working along with others where as no training or SOP document is provided to him for reference. With the result they often have half-baked knowledge of the processes and carry on tasks not knowing why they are doing and what they are required to do.
This situation is very dangerous for the health of the inventory and it shows slackness in the attitude of the third party service provider. Continuation of such a situation will lead to bad housekeeping, inventory mismatches, discrepancies and also affect the service delivery. If left unchecked can lead to theft, pilferage and misuse of inventory.
In any third party owned inventory operations warehouse, the principle client should ensure that periodic review and training is conducted for all staff. Inventory operations should be periodically reviewed and inventory counts and audits carried out regularly.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *