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Article review on inventory management
Seminar on importance of inventory management system
Article review on inventory management
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Recommended: Article review on inventory management
Proposal: Point of Sale for The Brighter Side
Most small businesses underestimate the importance of managing their inventory. They do not realize that many headaches and fire drills are caused by the lack of control and knowledge of their inventory. Whether it is a lack of knowledge of the quantity or specs of a certain product, businesses too frequently use outdated inventory systems. Insufficient systems do not allow them to get the most out of their inventory, because when used properly, inventory management systems allow businesses to make a concise, real time analysis of products and markets that help them make better business decisions. Inventory management systems also allow businesses to better serve their customers since they keep a detailed and accurate record of purchase histories and trends so they can reorder products more efficiently.
With a controlled inventory, management will be notified when products need to be rendered, are selling quickly or are disappearing due to theft. In essence, the business becomes organized and by controlling inventory, profits can increase. Inventory management allows businesses to make smart and informed decisions about promotions and specials since they are better able to monitor rate of turn for their merchandise. In addition, they let management know when a product is no longer profitable.
Products are the heart and soul of a business. Even with the best customer service, they will not be profitable without a commodity to sell. It is the purpose between the business and its customer. It was interesting to hear from Kelly O'Donnell, an owner for The Brighter Side, tell that her company does not use any inventory control whatsoever. The Brighter Side spends thousands of dollars on merchandise but does not systematically control how the products are doing or how much is left. During our interview I said to her, "Do you send your daughter to school to learn and not see how her grades are?" Most parents want to know if their kids are doing well, and if they are not, they want to know what areas they need to improve upon. The same should go for inventory. It is vital to see how products are doing. It is also important to know which products are selling and which are falling behind, to determine why and how to improve upon it.
Before inventory productivity can be improved, one must take a careful and critical look at the specific business entity, which in this case is Austin Wood Products. In the case it stated that there is no way to know what is available in the storage room until you get there is a huge concern. There is usually a 50 percent chance of obtaining the needed lumber for a job, and this is interfering with productivity. In the area of inventory management, the purchasing professional should make explicit decisions. There are many things that the company must be aware of.
In 2012 Macy’s had a gross profit margin and net income margin of 11148, and 1335 respectively. In 2013 Macy’s had a gross profit margin and net income margin of 11206, and 1486 respectively. In 2014 Macy’s had a gross profit margin and net income margin of 11242, and 1526 respectively ("Annual Reports/Fact Book -Macy 's Inc."). Gross profit and net income margin both show steady increases year over year, this data indicates Macy 's is continuing to grow at a sustainable rate. In 2013, Macy’s inventory turnover was 3.15, and decreased to 3.03 in 2014. Number of days sales in inventory in 2013 was 115.84 and 120.28 in 2014 ("Annual Reports/Fact Book -Macy 's Inc."). With the decrease in inventory turnover and conversely an increase in number of days sales in inventory Macy 's is showing a decrease in managing inventory, in other words this excess inventory is decreasing
IT helps manager to reduce inventory and human resource requirement to a competitive level in market.
Stock control is simply done by presuming certain amount of stock is being delivered which of course has a down side as well.
Rondo's Inventory Ratio declined to 9.5 in 2005, down from a ratio of 10 in 2003 and 2004. Rondo's sales improved year-over-year and the decline in inventory turns may be the result of carrying more inventory in response to increased sales. However, Rondo is still carrying too much inventory or the company may have excess obsolete inventory. Rondo needs to utilize just-in-time methods to improve inventory turn over. (Nice catch.) Carrying fewer inventories is required to improve efficiency and reduce cost. Rondo's performance is poor in this area.
The just-in-time (JIT) inventory system was developed in Japan after World War II, in an effort to control costs during fiscally challenging economic times (Waguespack and Cantor, 1996). The challenge that faced many Japanese companies in the post-War era was to find a way to meet the needs of customers and businesses while utilizing as few resources and as little capital as possible. The Japanese developed these set of techniques in order to control production, limit unnecessary products and reinvest the valuable capital left from the savings back into the business structure (Waguespack and Cantor, 1996). Much of the success of many Japanese corporations over the past four or five decades has been was linked to the principles of JIT (Chhikara and Weiss, 1995).
The difference between a product being a success or a failure can come down to how quickly a team can communicate and correct problems. There are strategies that can centralize a lot of supply chain decisions to maximize efficiency and minimize problems as well as down time. According to kinaxis the strategy that is taking over the industry is called supply chain control towers. What these actually do is combine technology, people, and a centralizing process to achieve a more reactive supply chain. When a problem comes apparent, a supply chain control tower will fast track the solution. The supply chain control tower will be able to use all of its assets and delegate the information to relevant personnel extremely quickly. If a company doesn’t use a supply chain control tower, the information will get out at a snail pace if it even gets there. Without a supply chain control tower, no one really knows all of the elements that are affected by a problem. Only a central supply chain control tower will know how to connect the moving parts and fast track the correction
Launched by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com website started in 1995 and is today considered as one of the most prominent retail website on the internet with a record turnover of US$ 14.87 billion in 2007. Jeff Bezos’s intention was to create an internet based company with the most dedicated product portfolio on the internet where customers could find anything they might want. Amazon’s success is based on technology, services and products (Jens et al., 2003).
The furniture company Somerset needs to retain its customer service record and remedy any of its global supply chain issues before it has an adverse effect on the brand and start losing customers. With a frequent change in the product catalog, keeping an excessive inventory will cut its profit and some of the product may become obsolete even before the furniture hits the retail outlet stores. In order to achieve profit and success, business employee many strategies and the supply chain strategy are one of the operational management techniques that use analytical decision making process to achieve the company goals and provide tools to effectively compete in the market (Taylor and Russell, 2014).
In Fred Meyer our output like in all grocery stores, is not a product but the amount of items we sell. Sales is what drives the company, it is the source for our Revenue. Similar to manufacturing companies where they have numbers that tell them how much they produced, we have numbers that tells us how much we have sold. Every department has a goal that they have to reach. They have to sell their products to come to that number. The number varies daily, and managers expect from every department that they will sell more products compared to last year.
According to Srinidhi and Tayi (2004), companies that are flexible enough and are able to change from a JIT system to a traditional inventory system will have a competitive advantage over other firms who do not switch. In such uncontrollable environments, the major benefit of JIT becomes a handicap with the increase in delivery times and the added data handling and coordination required in such times. This leads to a decrease in quick response time, which ultimately leads to increase in costs to the firm.
In addition, at the time, the economy was doing great, therefore, using the push system to stock pile inventory was acceptable. However, during the dot-com bust of the 2000’s, its sales and the demand for its products greatly decreased. Unfortunately, during this time, Cisco discovered that it possessed an abundance of inventory, and, wrote off more than $1 billion in inventory. Consequently, the company learned that acquiring inventory in anticipation of market demand, and not factoring in the human element of its business increased its risks of failure. Obviously, Cisco wanted to meet its customer’s demands, however, the problem was that it held more inventory than what the customers were demanding. Nevertheless, afterwards, it knew that it needed to adopt a new, more efficient approach to inventory. Therefore, Cisco had to reevaluate its supply chain system and seek input from IT, customers, suppliers, and finance. Further, by including input from these sources, Cisco adopted the more efficient pull system. The pull system, is dependent upon producing smaller repeating orders. Rather than the push system, which relies on larger less repeating orders. Effective inventory management, when administered correctly, can reduce and keep the inventory to a more desired level. In addition, Cisco discovered that inventory management can reduce inventory levels, enhance cash flow and reduce overall
Inventory management is a method through which a business handles tangible resources and materials to ensure availability of resources for use. It is a collection of interdisciplinary processes including a full circle of the demand forecasting, supply chain management, inventory control and reverse logistics. Inventory management is the optimization of inventories of manufactured goods, work in progress, and raw materials. According to Doucette (2001) inventory management can be challenging at times; however, the need for effective inventory management is largely seen more as a necessity than a mere trend when customer satisfaction and service have become a prime reason for a business to stand apart from its competition. For example, Wal-Mart’s inventory management is one of the biggest contributors to the success of the company; effective and efficient inventory management is of critical importance.
Inventory management can enhance the efficiency in operation of the supermarket. Supermarket must ensure that the correct levels of inventory are being maintained throughout the store, and that merchandise is purchased at the best price point as possible. Holding too much inventory on hand generate costs like carrying costs. Whereas having too little inventory on hand makes customers dissatisfied and it leads to declining
Inventory management is defined because a science mostly established art of guaranteeing that just enough inventory share is command with a company to fulfill demand (Coleman, 2000; Jay & Barry, 2006). it's mostly regarding specifying the size and keeping of stacked product. Inventory management is usually needed at completely distinct spots within a service or within multiple spots of a supply network to guard the standard and planned course of production up against the random disruption of running low upon materials or product. The scope of inventory administration also concerns the good lines between replenishment period interval, carrying costs of inventory, asset management, investment forecasting, inventory valuation, selection visibility,