Improving the Inventory Process Abstract
MMAS manufactures and distributes high-accuracy metering products to the North American utility, sub-metering and industrial markets. The company recently revamped its procurement processes, switching from offshore to domestic parts suppliers for some components to provide more flexibility in its supply chain. Workers at its 100,000 sq ft manufacturing and distribution facility were bogged down with a paper based, manual inventory management process. All inventory moves were written down and key entered into MAPICS on stationary desktop PCs, a time-consuming process that made it difficult to manage the company’s inventory of parts and finished products. Annual physical inventories took
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This is an ERP (Enterprise resource planning) which is a business support system that maintains in a single database the data needed for a variety of business functions such as Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Financials, Projects, Human Resources and Customer Relationship Management. An annual inventory takes upward of 2 days to complete.
The company found a technology solution to help its distribution operations keep pace with the company’s growth – QuikTrac. With QuikTrac MMAS will be able to cut the time it takes to complete its physical inventory process in half and significantly improve inventory accuracy and warehouse efficiency using a wireless data collection solution that communicates in real time with its MAPICS enterprise resource planning system. Using label printers, MMAS has deployed bar coded location labels throughout its warehouse. Workers scan the location labels with the mobile computers, and key enter quantities during inventory moves. Warehouse employees will also use the devices for cycle counting, and annual physical inventories.
In order for QuikTrac to be functional several system updates had to occur, software had to be updated and new servers had to be installed in order to hold the abundance of information that would now be input via wireless devices. QuikTrac system requires at least 2.0 GHz with 20 GB HD, 256 MD RAM running Windows XP Pro (Preferred), 2000, or 98 with ODBC
The Home Depot Rapid Deployment Center’s inventory tracking system is based on a star network configuration. Each employee uses a Radio Frequency (RF) scanning gun to create labels placed on all inventory as it is received into inventory. Then, the labels on the inventory are scanned and located to predetermined locations in the building, tracking the inventory’s movement through the building. This tracking ensures that no inventory is lost while transitioning from receiving until it is placed on the correct trailer for shipment to our stores. Another function of the RF guns are to track the work being performed by the employees to compare against a predetermined set of standards. This data tells a story of how effectively each person is completing
This will provide the company with the chance to more efficiently manage its activities (Mangiaracina et al, 2011). At present, the company does not have any key plans in place to provide it with help with managing its applications. It is however critical for the company’s management to ensure that it clearly understands the importance of putting in places a wireless technology. This is due to the fact that the company will have a better chance to track its inventory while at the same time ensure that it is able to remotely control all of its 10 new stores (Rekik et al, 2009).
The company instead needs to change to a first in First out approach to keep inventory moving on shelves and develop a new enterprise resource system (Phillips, 2008). In addition to this change which would directly affect the floor employees since it is labor intensive and involves constant moving of product, the company would implement a sales tracking portable device that directly connects the store with the ecommerce site and the distributors. Under this method, store clerks can carry the portable tracker on their person and be able to directly engage with the customer by locating products faster as well as order products directly with the consumer if the product is out of stock or not carried at that location. In addition, the sales tracker will be an inventory tracker with a minimum quantity set with distributors that can automatically order additional product to keep stock or for the company to ship excess material at one location to another location in
Enterprise Resource Planning is an information system that serves all departments within an enterprise. Overstock utilizes an Oracle bases product to reduce critical response times and to improve the customers shopping experience. This was implemented in 2008. “A component of
Fishbowl inventory is Utah based software company that is allowing small and mid size business to manager their inventory by incorporating wholesale distribution, inventory control , manufacturing , order management , asset tracking and bar coding. The program also provides multi location tracking, LIFO/FIFO.As apart of Fishbowl inventory, the software runs on a centralized server, allowing multiple customers to connect simultaneously which helps managers and on the floor supervisors keep track of inventory in live time. The server side uses a SQL database and can run on Windows, this is a major benefit to the company because windows is easy to access and efficient enough for employees to use with
In simpler words, an ERP is a massivesoftware architecture that supports the streaming and distribution of geographically scattered enterprise wide information across all the functional units of a business house. It provides the business management executives with a comprehensive
Ever thought that civilian government employees get paid too much or, that they hardly work? Or, wondered what civilian Tinker employees really do? Well, before I became a Federal employee for the Department of Defense, I had the same thoughts. I did not realize what all Air Force civilian employees really do. When I started working out at Tinker Air Force Base, I was a tool crib attendant, and a year and a half later I became a Management Assistant and now I am currently an Inventory Management Specialist (IMS). When I was hired for the IMS position my boss told me it will take me approximately 3 to 5 years to fully understand my job and to become a Journeyman (Subject Matter Expert). I thought she was only kidding, but as it turns she was not. I have been working as an IMS for almost two years and still have not learned everything about my job, and I’m always learning new things.
Proper Inventory Tracking hardware and software is imperative to the continued success of a company when choosing to install a Vending Machine Inventory Control System. Installing a Vending Machine Inventory Control System will allow the company to save on money, time and resources. By utilizing reusable tracking devices for each vending machine it is possible to have an accurate up-to-date inventory. Due to installation of this control system, software updates will need to take place in order to allow the full benefits of the system to occur. Software that features an inventory module an inventory module and provides the ability to track a single item in a group of millions would be beneficial for this type of installation. Our
All warehouse and logistic company strives to improve its operational efficiency to ensure all transaction runs smoothly. Technology and materials handling revolution have become significant catalysts in the evolution of smarter and efficient warehouses. Yamato Transport needs to leverage technology that can give them access to actionable information that can be used in real-time. Identify whether workers needs to have access to mobile technology such as smartphones or other technology. In addition, software solutions also can give warehouse administrators a outlook of customers, orders and inventory, as well as computerize warehouse processes effectively. (Dragan,
In business, it is important for companies to be able to communicate effectively. Each department of a company relies on the other departments as they add to the value chain. One way for a company to integrate its different departments is enterprise resource planning. ERPs are software programs that allow companies to join together data across operations on a company wide basis (Jessup and Valacich 248). ERPs store company information in a common database and allow all departments to access it from one central location (Koch). Companies without ERPS may contain many legacy systems, each operating with different
Inventory itself is a list of products that a company has available for sale to customers. So what is Inventory Management? By definition according to BusinessDictionary.com, “Inventory Management is policies, procedures, and techniques employed in maintaining the optimum number or amount of each inventory item”.
ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. ERP is one complete system to rationalise processes and data across the whole organisation, so business decisions can be data driven. The perception of ERP is a joint database that supports numerous purposes used by different business elements which in practice this means that staffs in different departments for example, accounting and sales can
The entire organization relies on the linked inventory management and point of sale systems (POS) to maintain their standards for business and sales. Walmart has used different methods to improve inventory tracking system (Mathews, 2006). These resulted in decreasing the out of stock grocery store and empty shelves problem that leads to a better customer satisfaction. In addition, Walmart improved the inventory level management system by using advanced information technology systems and communication systems to effectively track sales and merchandise inventories in stores (Greenspan, 2015) . The store level information system allows suppliers to be notified as soon as items are purchased. Retrain employees in charge of inventory to ensure proper
Expanding product offering—to develop an integrated approach to distribution management utilizing technology such as PDA devices and GPS
One of the most important aspects to consider when comparing the current purchasing strategy with the proposed one is the impact of direct deliveries from external suppliers to the central warehouse on the lead times of spare parts which are ordered by the warehouse planners. Lead times have a big influence on inventory planning and replenishment policies and lead time savings can be very beneficial for the business of a warehouse and the performance of a SPSC (de Treville et al. 2004). Hiller and Liebermann (2001) regard unnecessarily long lead times as a form of waste and minimizing or avoiding waste as a key component of superior inventory management. In the current setting, three stages of the SPSC are involved in the purchasing