Business policies utilize predictive analytics and regression analysis to manage inventory effectively, avoiding excesses and shortages while optimizing costs and responsiveness. The implementation of these policies involves advanced statistical methods and technologies to enhance accuracy, reduce errors, and adapt to market changes, thereby maintaining operational efficiency and competitiveness.
Check out industry best practices below on how to optimize your inventory to cut costs, meet demand, and streamline your supply chain.
Call an Audible to Proactively Counter Supply Chain Noise
You know the situation: You work out the best way to manage each inventory item by computing the proper reorder points and replenishment targets, then average demand increases or decreases, or demand volatility changes, or suppliers’ lead times change, or your own costs change.
Top 3 Most Common Inventory Control Policies
To make the right decision, you’ll need to know how demand forecasting supports inventory management, choice of which policy to use, and calculation of the inputs that drive these policies.The process of ordering replenishment stock is sufficiently expensive and cumbersome that you also want to minimize the number of purchase orders you must generate.
Ten Tips that Avoid Data Problems in Software Implementation
Once a customer is ready to implement software for demand planning and/or inventory optimization, they need to connect the analytics software to their corporate data stream.This provides information on item demand and supplier lead times, among other things. We extract the rest of the data from the ERP system itself, which provides metadata such as each item’s location, unit cost, and product group.
Riding the Tradeoff Curve
In the supply chain planning world, the most fundamental decision is how to balance item availability against the cost of maintaining that availability (service levels and fill rates). At one extreme, you can grossly overstock and never run out until you go broke and have to close up shop from sinking all your cash into inventory that doesn’t sell.
Stop Leaking Money with Manual Inventory Controls
An inventory professional who is responsible for 10,000 items has 10,000 things to stress over every day. Double that for someone responsible for 20,000 items. In the crush of business, routine decisions often take second place to fire-fighting: dealing with supplier hiccups, straightening out paperwork mistakes, recovering from that collision between a truck and the loading dock.
Key Considerations When Evaluating your ERP system’s Forecasting Capabilities
Consider what is meant by “demand management”, “demand planning”, and “forecasting”. These terms imply certain standard functionality for collaboration, statistical analysis, and reporting to support a professional demand planning process. However, in most ERP systems, “demand management” running MRP and reconciling demand and supply for the purpose of placing orders
Recent Posts
Forecast-Based Inventory Management for Better PlanningForecast-based inventory management, or MRP (Material Requirements Planning) logic, is a forward-planning method that helps businesses meet demand without overstocking or understocking. By anticipating demand and adjusting inventory levels, it maintains a balance between meeting customer needs and minimizing excess inventory costs. This approach optimizes operations, reduces waste, and enhances customer satisfaction. […]
Make AI-Driven Inventory Optimization an Ally for Your OrganizationIn this blog, we will explore how organizations can achieve exceptional efficiency and accuracy with AI-driven inventory optimization. Traditional inventory management methods often fall short due to their reactive nature and reliance on manual processes. Maintaining optimal inventory levels is fundamental for meeting customer demand while minimizing costs. The introduction of AI-driven inventory optimization can significantly reduce the burden of manual processes, providing relief to supply chain managers from tedious tasks. […]
The Importance of Clear Service Level Definitions in Inventory ManagementInventory optimization software that supports what-if analysis will expose the tradeoff of stockouts vs. excess costs of varying service level targets. But first it is important to identify how “service levels” is interpreted, measured, and reported. This will avoid miscommunication and the false sense of security that can develop when less stringent definitions are used. Clearly defining how service level is calculated puts all stakeholders on the same page. This facilitates better decision-making. […]
Future-Proofing Utilities: Advanced Analytics for Supply Chain OptimizationUtilities in the electrical, natural gas, urban water, and telecommunications fields are all asset-intensive and reliant on physical infrastructure that must be properly maintained, updated, and upgraded over time. Maximizing asset uptime and the reliability of physical infrastructure demands effective inventory management, spare parts forecasting, and supplier management. A utility that executes these processes effectively will outperform its peers, provide better returns for its investors and higher service levels for its customers, while reducing its environmental impact. […]
The Cost of Spreadsheet PlanningCompanies that depend on spreadsheets for demand planning, forecasting, and inventory management are often constrained by the spreadsheet’s inherent limitations. This post examines the drawbacks of traditional inventory management approaches caused by spreadsheets and their associated costs, contrasting these with the significant benefits gained from embracing state-of-the-art planning technologies. […]
Inventory Optimization for Manufacturers, Distributors, and MRO
- Future-Proofing Utilities: Advanced Analytics for Supply Chain OptimizationUtilities in the electrical, natural gas, urban water, and telecommunications fields are all asset-intensive and reliant on physical infrastructure that must be properly maintained, updated, and upgraded over time. Maximizing asset uptime and the reliability of physical infrastructure demands effective inventory management, spare parts forecasting, and supplier management. A utility that executes these processes effectively will outperform its peers, provide better returns for its investors and higher service levels for its customers, while reducing its environmental impact. […]
Centering Act: Spare Parts Timing, Pricing, and ReliabilityIn this article, we'll walk you through the process of crafting a spare parts inventory plan that prioritizes availability metrics such as service levels and fill rates while ensuring cost efficiency. We'll focus on an approach to inventory planning called Service Level-Driven Inventory Optimization. Next, we'll discuss how to determine what parts you should include in your inventory and those that might not be necessary. Lastly, we'll explore ways to enhance your service-level-driven inventory plan consistently. […]
Why MRO Businesses Need Add-on Service Parts Planning & Inventory SoftwareMRO organizations exist in a wide range of industries, including public transit, electrical utilities, wastewater, hydro power, aviation, and mining. To get their work done, MRO professionals use Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. These systems are designed to do a lot of jobs. Given their features, cost, and extensive implementation requirements, there is an assumption that EAM and ERP systems can do it all. In this post, we summarize the need for add-on software that addresses specialized analytics for inventory optimization, forecasting, and service parts planning. […]
5 Steps to Improve the Financial Impact of Spare Parts PlanningIn today’s competitive business landscape, companies are constantly seeking ways to improve their operational efficiency and drive increased revenue. Optimizing service parts management is an often-overlooked aspect that can have a significant financial impact. Companies can improve overall efficiency and generate significant financial returns by effectively managing spare parts inventory. This article will explore the economic implications of optimized service parts management and how investing in Inventory Optimization and Demand Planning Software can provide a competitive advantage. […]
Problem
What is my inventory position today, on any item? Where are we stocking out and how often? What are my delivery times? Why did we ship late? Do we have too much inventory in one location, not enough in another? What are my real supplier lead times? These are obvious, daily questions, and the answers can reveal underlying root causes that when resolved will improve supply chain performance. But these answers are elusive, often because data is locked up in your ERP and only accessible via limited reporting views or spreadsheets. Creating these reports manually using Excel requires data imports, reformatting, and distribution to key stakeholders, wasting countless hours of valuable planning time. This means that getting updated information, when you need it, is not always possible. Not having access to these answers means that problems reveal themselves only after it is too late, and opportunities for improving the inventory planning process are overlooked, further contributing to poor performance.
Solution
Smart Operational Analytics (SOA™) is a native web reporting solution available on Smart’s Inventory Planning and Optimization Platform, Smart IP&O. It provides a fast, easily understood, current perspective on the state of your inventory, its performance against critical metrics, actual supplier lead times, opportunities to rebalance stocks across facilities, and helps you uncover root causes of operational inefficiencies. SOA automatically refreshes as often as you’d like providing all stakeholders immediate, up-to-date reporting on your operations and performance. You’ll have constant visibility of inventory levels, orders, shipments, and supplier performance to ensure you’ll always be in tune with the state of your operations and resolve issues before they become problems. Enhance visibility. Improve responsiveness. Increase your bottom line.
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Smart Operational Analytics
Inventory Analytics
Quantify inventory value
Inventory segmentation
Inventory classification
Trend metrics over time
Operational Performance
Measure service level performance
Measure fill rate performance
Calculate turns, holding & ordering costs
Trend metrics over time
Supplier Insights
Measure supplier performance
Compare supplier lead times
Rank suppliers across available metrics
Trend metrics over time
Who is Operational Analytics for?
Smart Operational Analytics is for executives, planners, and operations professionals who seek to:
- Measure inventory costs and performance in real time.
- Assess and compare Supplier performance.
- Identify root causes of stockouts, excess inventory, and late deliveries.
- share KPI’s such as service levels, turns, costs, and more across the organization.
What questions can Operational Analytics answer?
- What does my inventory look like? By value, count, classification?
- Is my inventory trending up, down, or the same?
- How much of my inventory is overstocked, understocked, or acceptable?
- Can inventory be transferred from overstocked locations to under stocked locations?
- Can existing supplier orders be cancelled or deferred?
- What are my current turns, service levels, and fill rates and how do they trend over time?
- How many out of stock events occurred this week, this month, this quarter?
- How are my suppliers performing, how do they compare?
- What is my supplier lead time and how has it changed over time?
Inventory and supplier reporting for your enterprise
Smart Operational Analytics empowers you to:
- Benchmark service performance and inventory costs.
- Benchmark supplier performance.
- Assess and Classify Inventory by class, stage, and more.
- Share metrics with the organization.