Essay about Inventory Management Systems

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)

Hence, technology is bettering reliability and speed with which information is divulged (Porter, 1980). Hand-held computers or PDA’s are utilized by Zara to collect information on consumer needs between retail stores and the factory in La Coruna. This along with regular telephone conversations between store managers and marketing specialists are one of the reasons that Zara’s information network is so effective. The utilization of PDA’s can be done by any company; it is Zara’s determination not to allow important information to fall by the wayside that assists with its success. PDAs are connected to the store 's point-of-sale (POS) system, enabling managers to see how garments rank by sales. In as little as an hour, managers can send information that combine the hard data captured at the POS intermixed with acumen on what customers would like to see. All of this data allows Zara to design and produce styles and orders based on feedback rather than guesswork. Hence, Zara avoids costly overproduction and the consequent sales and mark-downs that are so widespread in the fast fashion industry (Rohwedder and Johnson, 2008).

frustration with having to manually track and reorder high demand items. She would like an automated

frustration with having to manually track and reorder high demand items. She would like an automated

Although it’s possible to put just about any process in an excel spreadsheet, the concern is how much time it would take to accomplish all of the required data entry. Why not use a database software program such as Gigatrak to easily barcode and track all of the parts? This software can then be combined with an Excel spreadsheet if the person has more of a comfort level with it. (Asset Tracking, 2010)

The purpose of this course project is to address the ongoing issues surrounding my companies, REI (Recreation Equipment Inc.,) inventory management issue and to see if we can find a software program better suited to the companies needs. The goal is to find products quickly and efficiently. Customer satisfaction is key to driving sales and profit in any company. As a result a software upgrade is certainly needed in order to compete with other companies in the same industry.

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.

Kudler Fine FoodsUniversity of PhoenixSmith Systems Consulting (SSC) has been contracted by Kudler Fine Foods to develop a frequent shopper program. Kudler Fine Food's goal with the frequent shopper program is to develop customer loyalty and penetrate new market shoppers while tracking their behavior. Smith Systems Consulting has been able to design, host, develop, maintain, support and program systems development for their clients since 1984. Smith Systems Consulting employs over 350 employees and has generated over $45 million in revenue. Smith Systems Consulting was contracted to develop a frequent shopper program by developing a hardware platform, network connections, software development tools, database information, user interfaces,

Create a POS that will track inventory, who made the sale and when to reorder

A supply chain solution to ordering would be to invest in purchasing software set up on a network for KFF management and store managers to access at anytime. This software would allow all stores to place orders cohesively. Each store manager can see how much product is being sold in each store and compare sales. If there is an overstock in one store, managers can move inventory to another store by looking at the data on the network. Kathy can implement a Just-in-Time (JIT) system. This is the concept behind creating the firm 's product in the least amount of time (Gomez-Mejia & Balkin, 2002). Kathy and the management team will develop a smooth and integrated production process. Possibly in the future KFF can use the same type of JIT inventory systems as Wal-Mart. The inventory reorders are generated as products are scanned at check out. As soon as an items hits a certain number in stock, the information is sent to the supplier for reorder

Maintain an inventory list of all equipment brought to the institution and have it available on

After extensive last minute digging, I finally found a manager who trusted me enough to supply me with the name of the inventory system that is used. Unfortunately for me this is all I could uncover from my employer, but it is a start. Wal-Mart uses the SMART system. Because of the way it is spelled I can only assume that it is an acronym. I have been searching for over an hour on Google.com and finally produced some meager results, but here they are.

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

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”.