Inventory management tips -1

Inventory policies drive two types of costs-operating expenses and working capital requirements. The latest "Logistics Cost and Service Report" published by Establish Inc./Herbert W. Davis and Company, indicates that, while total logistics costs as a percent of sales are falling and most individual companies have succeeded in reducing inventory levels; total logistics costs per hundredweight are increasing, and inventory costs as a percent of total logistics cost are increasing.

In many organizations, however, the opportunities to reduce inventory costs are often not addressed at all or are not completely exploited. If your organization needs help taking money out of inventory there are strategies you can employ today that will provide payoff.
Some of these strategies address having less active inventory, others how you purchase active inventory, and still others require transferring inventory or relying on vendors for better inventory management. Regardless of which you choose to explore, proactive inventory management policies will make a difference in your operations. Here are some of the most common techniques for lowering inventory levels.

1. Base Cycle Stock on Economics: For purchased products, getting a handle on your acquisition transaction costs will either reduce average inventory or allow for reducing purchasing and receiving labor. For manufactured products, if production equipment changeover costs are in a similar state, getting them in place will either reduce average inventory through shorter runs or allow for reducing changeover and receiving labor through longer runs.

2. Control Order Transaction Costs: In the office, use the computer to generate purchase orders (POs), EDI for PO transmission, advance shipping notices (ASNs) to reduce expediting, and historical vendor performance to prioritize expediting to lower purchasing costs. In the manufacturing plant, pre-planning; pre-staging of needed parts or materials; use of special tools or equipment; changeover initiation prior to completion of the previous run; teamwork and work-division; maintaining equipment temperatures; and minimizing QA / QC work all reduce cycle stock inventory. In the distribution center (DC), pallet manifest-based receiving processes, counting scales, statistics-based inspection and checking, bar code scanners for data entry, certifying key vendors to eliminate receiving functions, and stocking forward storage locations first and reserve locations second can all reduce purchase transaction costs and cycle stock accordingly.

3. Lower Inventory Holding Costs: Improve space utilization in leased, contract, or public warehouses (or to minimize or delay expansion of owned facilities) through narrow aisle handling equipment, mezzanines, layout, or more appropriate storage modes.

4. Base Safety Stock on Customer Service: Using the appropriate number of product classes, setting the dividing lines between each class in the best manner, updating safety stock levels dynamically, and basing the service levels for each class on the financial goals of the business all serve to either reduce safety stock inventory or reduce out-of-stock situations and increase revenue.

5. Use Routine Demand Forecasting: Using manually edited arithmetic forecasting models to reduce forecast error will reduce overstocking, backorders, and DC returns from stores, holding inventory levels closer to only that required to support the desired customer service level.