Inventory Management Problem of USA

Evaluate the role their inventory plays in the company’s performance, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

The topic has been chosen for research is to critically evaluate the inventory management systems of retail industry in UK. This industry is continuously growing up with pleasure of customers even the fluctuation in customer choices. Moreover, this sector has been hugely impacted from 2008 to 2010 by the economic crisis, when customer did not have enough money to spend. As a result some retail businesses have incurred a loss and shut down their operation. Though some of the retailer took the challenge and continued their business to see the future success. But inaccuracy of stock count leads to poor availability in store level stock. Moreover employees’ inadequate level of skills and improper management clue to poor control of inventory management. As a result decrease the customer satisfactions therefore fall in revenues and ultimately collapse in profitability level. (Lussier, 2012)

This then translates to a 50% chance of not having inventory available during job opportunities. Therefore, opportunity costs might occur. The indifference of the production managers' in these aspects of inventory control is alarming and should be acted upon.

To be successful in today’s business environment, an organization must be able to perform certain fundamentals accurately and efficiently. One of these elements is having an effective and efficient Inventory System Management (ISM). ISM enables one to have the knowledge of where his or her inventory is at every step of the way. This allows one to better interact with consumer and make sales. Choosing the right ISM can lead and pave the ground work for future business success and profitability.

“In an age of increasing specialization, it is rare for one person to be knowledgeable in all aspects of a complex task” (Thompson, 2015, p. 88). In this case, the first step was to understand our incoming demand. For this, I relied on information technology to generate numerous reports as well as the expertise of our sales team. It was at that point that the data was analyzed in conjunction with an inventory specialist. After we had the knowledge of what current product to inventory, we then needed to establish a set of guidelines of how to qualify products in the future. Inventory control management processes were instituted as well as a supply an auditing system. These steps included information from organizational members from our manufacturing group, planning department, and procurement department. Finally, we needed to understand and facilitate the storage and shipping of the product. We enlisted the help of our warehouse employees as well as our transportation department. This type of project included various levels of the organization and required a tremendous amount of communication. The project workload was enormous and also had a substantial financial investment associated with it. Instrumental in the project’s success was the team’s cohesion, diversity, and strategies deployed

Office Depot uses multiple inventory strategies to order products. 90% to 95% of goods are ordered through automatic replenishment, manual replenishment, pull replenishment, and global sourcing are also used depending on channel, volume, velocity and cost. (Office Depot, 2015). The accuracy of the inventory from both a DC and store perspective is critical to the organizations success. Heizer and Render (2014) state that record accuracy is a prerequisite to inventory management, production scheduling, and sales. Accuracy is maintained by either periodic or perpetual systems (p.479). In Office Depot, the stores are required to cycle-count technology items such as laptops, desktops computers, and tablets five days a week. Discrepancies are entered in the system and bounced off the local DC’s on-hand inventory discrepancies. Office Depot is a “blind receive” organization meaning the stores receive pallets of products and simply unwrap and put them away. The only way a store knows if a product is missing is through the cycle-count program. This system was put into place to speed up the receiving process and eliminate unnecessary steps once the product was received at the store level. Office Depot conducts a full physical inventory once a year through a third party and trues up the inventory shrink at this time.

Froya Fabrikker A/S of Bergen, Norway, is a small company that manufactures specialty heavy equipment for use in North Sea oil fields. (The Norwegian currency is the krone, which is denoted by Nkr.) The company uses a sob-order costing system arid applies manufacturing overhead cost to jobs on the basis of direct labor-hours. At the beginning of the year, the following estimates were made for the purpose of computing the predetermined overhead rate: manufacturing overhead cost, Nkr360,000; and direct labor-hours, 900.

Second, the classification in inventory management is still inaccurate. That results in some problems such as: the severe lack of some products which are in growing demand (1 inch valve series 230), the redundancy making storage expenses go up and the stagnancy in storage area (to products like gear driven rotary and monitor controller)

With this company the inventory management ratios further indicate that there may be an issue with inventory and inventory controls. The inventory turnover ratio is lower than the industry average and the days’ sales in inventory are high. A company wants to turn inventory quickly to reduce storage costs, and

Lately, Mr. Milligan has become concerned with his inventory management methods. he now wants to better manage his inventory. As a starting point, he wants to examine his costs, sales, markup percentages, gross profits, and inventory levels. He asks you to review his inventory and make suggestions for improvement. He provides you with the data and asks you to prepare an Inventory Analysis worksheet.

Tasks:  What should Alison do? o Develop plans to improve the inventory management o Develop time-based supply strategies to bring competitive advantages to the organization  Identify the functions and forms of inventory  What are alternatives for inventory management? o ABC classification o Supplier-managed inventories (SMI) o Just-on-time or Just-in-time (JIT) o Enhance the forecasting system (factor correlated with inventory variation)  Provide training programs for current and new hiring employees 1

* High quality of whisky due to the unusual iron-free spring water used in the distillation process and the specially prepared fire-charred white oak barrels used in the aging process.

Nowadays, in an era that has advanced technology and a place in the world. Everything can be linked only at your fingertips in the times of rapidly developing with the sophisticated technology of today. Therefore, an inventory system is also not lagging behind in introducing a method of keeping an inventory data systematically and safely. The system plays a very important role in improving the competitiveness of a business. Usually, organizations today face too many challenges to achieve the cost, speed and reliability. Efficient inventory system really help in order to make sure the store’s performance and data record is always in good condition and secured from abusers. The system basically to ease the admin to manage the

Axsäter, 2006). In this area only large scale multi-national companies have set a number of

An inventory management system would be a great asset to any restaurant. It is very important to be able to keep track of inventory to make sure items are being used and food costs are staying low. Having an inventory management system will