- Inventory management is strategic for any business, industry or trade.
- It represents an organization of your flow, thought, which can generate significant savings and a very interesting return on investment.
- But this goes beyond the financial aspect: managing your stocks and supplies as best as possible, responding to customer demand, this has a positive impact.
- Discover 6 tips to improve the management of a warehouse, store or warehouse.
What is inventory management?
Inventory management consists of:
to control the entry and exit of goods,
to ensure product availability when ordering
to fill stock that is not too expensive for the company
to avoid waste and loss as much as possible.
What are the risks of poor inventory management?
- Companies are not paying enough attention to inventory management risks: poor management of increased labor requirements, delays in preparation and delivery times, organized storage space, misuse or suboptimal use of equipment , work accidents, loss, waste and breakage
- They also risk seeing their competitiveness in the market diminish, in favor of an organized store or warehouse.
- The challenge here is to find the balance by overstocking and calculating safety stock.
The risks associated with overstocking
- It may seem like a good idea to “plan big” and mitigate any risk of shortages, but overstocking also has its drawbacks: it requires greater storage and therefore costs more;
- due to the quantity stored and managed, more will be organizationally expected;
- Finally, there is a risk of obsolescence for unprocessed stock: one reference may be that of another, leaving behind the company’s oldest stock.
- Barcode technology plays an important role in automated warehouses.
- Barcode printers and readers are relatively expensive and can be integrated into warehouse operations.
- This significantly reduces manual entry errors that occur in a warehouse or store.