____________________________________________________________________________________ Inventory Management
Inventory is a necessary evil for most of us involved with the supply chain space . Suppliers and their consumers are often caught playing a game of hot potatoes with this dreaded asset . No one wants to hold the inventory , but everyone knows there must be some in the supply chain to avoid the dreaded stock-out or worse , a plant shutdown . Shutting down a large operation because you have stocked out of a five-cent part is the cardinal sin of any supply chain manager .
Industry pundits have been chanting , ‘ go digital !’ for years . However , very few have offered practical solutions for inventory management and most industry players are still tracking with clip boards , barcode scanners , or just their eyeballs . It would make sense to assume that the top ten largest industrial distributors have it figured out . They all talk a big innovation game , posting huge investments in the technology space at every investor meeting ; but most of them still use extensive networks of branch locations , holding localized inventory and an army of employees to solve this problem .
Weary of the constant battle of low inventory turns versus customer satisfaction , innovators from a small Midwest distribution company realized that it was not realistic to compete with the big guys using a manual VMI ( vendor managed inventory ) system . As a more practical solution , they provided a digital platform with a magical user interface ( RFID technology ) for their blue-collar consumers who didn ’ t have time for another set of rules when it came to inventory management .
Putting on their entrepreneur hats , they got to work to begin testing and implementing a combination of off-the-shelf RFID hardware with custom software to automate industrial supply chains . They deployed their first industry prototype in 2015 with a singular goal of ‘ getting our eyes on customer ’ s inventory .’ Years later , manufacturers have been enjoying a growing list of benefits to this practical , digital approach to inventory management .
▲ A digital VMI platform can streamline inventory , keeping it lean and without the possibility of stockouts
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