"Effective inventory management
allows a distributor to meet or exceed customers' expectations of product
availability with the amount of each item that will maximize the distributor's
net profits."'The superior set of features included in RockySoft's Inventory
Management Suite enhances Microsoft's Great Plains software to provide you with
a "state of the art" inventory management tool set. A methodical, comprehensive
plan of best practice policies and procedures along with this software will lead
to success and reduce the "heartburn" associated with an inventory that is out
of control.'Learn more about how an active inventory management strategy drives
to world-class lean inventory in the Microsoft Great Plains environment.
Microsoft's Distribution Inventory Management Series
This series of Microsoft Business Solutions White Papers was authored by Jon
Schreibfeder as a general guide for distributors faced with the challenges of
inventory management. Pulling from his more than 20 years of experience, Jon,
president of Effective Inventory Management Inc, has helped over 1,000 companies
improve their productivity and profitability through better inventory
management. In addition to the six general white papers of this series, Jon also
evaluated the RockySoft solution and wrote a seventh installment - the
only product focused guide ' for this series:
Effective Inventory Management - Great Plains and RockySoft.
Achieving Lean Distribution
Lean manufacturing is helping producers
throughout the world reduce inventories, lower labor costs, and increase their
overall efficiencies. The same concepts embraced by lean manufacturing
practitioners can help distributors achieve the goal of effective inventory
management. We will outline three major concepts of lean manufacturing and how
they can help distributors maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of their
operations.
Six Steps to Effective Inventory
Management
There are two different approaches organizations can make
with regard to inventory. They can assume it is just a necessary evil and inject
a special inventory reduction program whenever cash gets tight. Or they can make
strategic decisions on the level to carry, put an inventory management process
in place to actively manage inventory and continually improve the business
results. We believe this active inventory management strategy drives to
world-class lean inventory.
Are You Making
Money?
Are you in business to make money? Do you stock material to
meet customer's expectations? If so, this article may be just what you are
looking for. In this article were going to look at how the material you have in
stock relates to these goals - that is, how it is helping you meet your
customers expectations of availability while contributing positively to your
companys bottom line.
Do You Have an Early Warning System?
Most computer
systems provide buyers with out-of-stock reports. These are listings of stocked
products with no available inventory. Because the stock-out sales orders cannot
be filled, salespeople cannot provide the service their customers expect. Buyers
scramble to obtain inventory to prevent the "crisis" of the out-of-stock
situation from becoming the "catastrophe" of losing those valuable customers.
Out-of-stock reports are, in fact, "gotcha" reports: They inform a buyer
of a problem that already exists. Wouldnt it be better if a computer system
warned a buyer of an impending crisis? That is the goal of an "early warning
system."
Is It Sporadic or Is It Seasonal?
It is no secret that an accurate forecast of the future demand of a product is
crucial in achieving the four "rights" of effective inventory management: that
is, getting the right quantity of the
right item to the right location at the right time. As weve
discussed in previous articles, products with different patterns of usage
require different forecasting methods. The forecast for items with recurring
usage is usually based on four elements; these four elements will be explored in
this article.
Taming the Bullwhip
This whitepaper is the result of a study conducted in 1998 by a large vertically
integrated electronics manufacturer to understand the causes and contributing
factors that create demand signal amplification in a supply chain.
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