Top 5 Benefits of Inventory Visibility

Can you find all your products?

Inventory visibility contributes to maximizing growth and efficiency within the business. Sometimes in inventory management, it can be difficult to manage and oversee everything. Success in having ideal visibility over your inventory demands a lot of effort especially when you are doing the processes manually. 

Not just in retail, but also in other industries such as manufacturing and industrial plants, inventory management and visibility play an important role. In times of production problems, it is important that there is always a spare inventory available, and easily accessible to fix issues to avoid costly losses.

Inventory visibility in overall inventory management is very significant. Below let’s talk about the top benefits of having inventory visibility.

Benefits of Inventory Visibility

1. Allows having an accurate record of inventory levels

Inventory visibility doesn’t stop at knowing what you have, knowing how many you have and where everything is located across every location promotes having an accurate inventory level. When auditing inventory levels, it will not be as accurate if you can’t locate everything.

Having an accurate record of inventory levels also allows you to replenish just the right amount of products required to sustain a certain cycle before you order again for a new batch of inventory. This helps avoids overstocking and outdated products sitting on your shelves

2. Improves customer experience

Without real-time views into inventory, you risk losing customers who can easily find an alternative retailer or supplier where they know they can purchase from how and when they prefer. The more inventory visibility you have, the easier it is to monitor stock levels across channels and maintain enough inventory to meet customer demand and prevent delays in fulfillment. With improved visibility, you have the ability to optimize stock levels across your network.

3. Increases management efficiency

It is hard to overlook things when you have visibility. Manual inventory tracking requires multiple resources such as lots of time and manpower but with a help of systems like inventory management software improves management efficiency and promotes real-time visibility. When you have the right amount of visibility, it is more efficient to look after your overall inventory.

4. Locating products easier and simpler

We would not want outdated products sitting in our inventory, eating up space somewhere just because we could not locate them. Outdated products will eventually be written off if not disposed of on time. Before these products become unsellable, there is still a way to dispose of them by selling them at a discounted price or exchanging these for new items with the supplier. Locating inventory when you have like a bird’s-eye view of your inventory is something that helps a lot.

5. Supports better decision making


Good inventory visibility yields accurate data records. Data-driven decision-making prevents costly mistakes such as ordering more or less inventory than it should be which could lead to losses and customer disappointment.

Modern Inventory Visibility

When we look back to where inventory management sits in a business operation before, we will see that it was not made to cover multiple retail channels across multiple locations. It usually can manage only the location where inventory is located and where it is being sold and there are separate inventory records for every location a business has.

Nowadays, customer experience becomes more sophisticated each day. Their convenience in purchasing is more of a significant factor now for a business’s growth and the range of channels in which consumers would like to be able to able to access products has enhanced significantly. Having the right level of inventory visibility of what you have in stock is essential to make sure you fulfill what you’re consumers are expecting to be available as shown in these channels. 

How do inventory management systems help improve inventory visibility?

Inventory management systems made the processes simpler. On top of that, it also helps increase the visibility of your inventory. Aside from the top benefits of the inventory management system listed above, there are other features that can help us generally with our inventory. 

The most important aspect of inventory visibility, however, is not always available in all inventory management systems. When we say visibility, the most common criteria are being aware or having access only to the products and quantities you have. What we commonly fail to focus on is the location. 

When we miss focusing on the location of our inventory, we are risking having overstock and outdated and expired products. Location is essential in inventory visibility, especially when you have multiple locations and warehouses. 

Looking for real Inventory Visibility? You can learn more HERE and try it for free!

Managing Commercial Staging Inventory

Now that almost everything is starting to go back to normal after the pandemic slowed down, the offices that implemented the work-at-home setup are now going back to their workplace. Those who gave up their offices entirely during the pandemic have started to look for spaces again. This gives business opportunities to Staging companies especially those that specialize in commercial office staging to prosper once again.

Why do you need a Staging Inventory Management System?

Commercial Staging is one way to upgrade the property’s value instantly. It is making the property more marketable. The idea is you are selling this picture as the buyer’s prospective work environment, not just a bare workspace. It is to differentiate your office or commercial property from the competition by staging it. It showcases the selling points of the property. Potential buyers or tenants will have a more immersive imagination of feeling the space because staging the furniture and appliances will help them realize the actual size of the space.

Properties that do not have a good floor plan, offices that look gloomy, and are not situated in a very good location are the best candidates for staging. With the help of staging, offices set to be sold or rented become easier to market.

If we will search for some testimonies about how staging helps, we will find plenty of developers and owners saying that even properties with low value were sold fast because of staging.

Staging Inventory Management System

Staging is fun until more and more projects start to come and inventories are moving simultaneously from everywhere. It’s not a bad thing to have this problem because it means the business is performing well, however, you need to be keener in solving these problems to avoid issues related to inventory management from piling up.

Managing your staging inventory very well, especially when you both have your staging furniture or rent them, is essential. All furniture and appliances should be categorized properly and kept tracked all the time. 

This is where a staging inventory management system will come in. It helps in every way of managing all your items. It allows users to know what they have, how much they have, and where are they located.

One of the most powerful features of a Staging Inventory Management System is Barcoding.

Barcoding Your Staging Inventory

Why do you need to start using barcoding your inventory? The benefit of barcoding in home and commercial staging is the same as other businesses, to reduce human errors. It is very common in inventory management for people to just screen the data they’re and/or rely on their muscle memory. This is the main cause of the errors.

With the help of barcoding managing things such as locating items, checking in/out, and reviewing product details, everything becomes faster and more accurate.

Another benefit of barcoding your inventory helps you to reduce your time in organizing your record. When checking items, you don’t need to write them down, go to your computer and sort the items one by one. You just need to scan them and the data will load into your inventory system where you can check anytime.

Downloading Inventory Reports

Aside from barcoding, another best feature a staging inventory system can offer is the option to download all your inventory details. Most of the time, storage and warehouses are limited in this type of business so there will be a time that you need to audit and check how much furniture you have, how many art, decors, and beddings you are available for a new project, check for items that you are less likely to use in the future and have to dispose of or sell them.

There are two types of reports that are downloadable for important reasons.

  • Product details. You should be able to download your product details for auditing, for making sure every item from a certain project is checked out at the end of the project, or for some unforeseen events (fire, robbery, etc.). When you’re able to download reports of a certain staging project, you won’t need to worry about compiling all product details for filing claims. 
  • Activity history. This report should show the changes made in your inventory. Activity history should show the name of the user who made the change, when, and in what location. It helps you keep track of any unusual activity that occurs with your stock in addition to all of your daily activities. Everything will be accounted for.

If you can download all your inventory information, you can easily create a report instead of going into the warehouse, roaming around,  and counting every item manually. Especially when your niche is an office staging business that has some electronics and appliances that need upgrading or changing from time to time to match the current trends.

 

How to Manage Staging Inventory 

What is Home Staging in Real Estate?

Home Staging is a vital element of the real estate industry. It is not just decorating, putting things where you think it’s best, and hoping that the design will come out great. Staging basically means preparing the home for a potential buyer. When selling a home, it is essential that the buyer feels an emotional connection to the property. 

Buyers can get this connection only when the property is staged in a setting where they can imagine themselves living in the property and understand the spaces very well because of the portrayed surroundings. 

Home staging involves decorating, rearranging furniture, and positioning other aesthetic strategies to help the property highlight its selling point and boost its market value. It contributes to the overall improvement of the property. Making it more appealing to as many potential buyers as possible will result in a faster and more profitable sale of the property. 

Home Staging Inventory

Staging inventory is very different from the typical warehouse inventory. Every piece is moving around a lot in multiple project locations every couple of months or even weeks depending on the business size or demand. 

Given this setup, it’s truly hard to keep track of where things are located, which locations have what items, which moving truck has what items, and basically track everything that goes out and goes back of the warehouse.

Common Questions home stagers may have about staging inventory

Since Home Staging became part of the norm in selling real estate properties, it has come to the attention of many stagers that inventory plays a huge role in business success. 

The following are some of the inventory staging questions, especially for those who just started in this industry.

  • How to store the inventory?
  • How to organize staging inventory?
  • What physical tools help in organizing inventory?
  • What inventory system do they use to keep track of staging inventory?

How to store the Staging Inventory?

Storing the staging inventory is very important in this business because most of the time, space is limited. Not maximizing the space for inventory or disorganization may lead to some serious problems, such as the risk of needing additional investment for more storage space or items can get damaged when not stored properly.

Stagers organize and maximize their storage space by doing the following

  • Stacking up chairs and tables with furniture blankets in between to avoid damages
  • Hanging things on the walls
  • Using restaurant shelving to maximize storage
  • Use clear containers with labels for accessories such as kitchen accessories, living room accessories, etc. 
  • Categorizing items by type and keeping similar items by section
  • Keeping items accessible to see what’s available easily 

How to organize the Staging inventory?

The key to organizing the staging inventory is ensuring items are easily accessible and easily seen where they are. The first step is to group and categorize your items.
Grouping items is putting similar items together. Such as putting all art prints together on a shelf where you can effortlessly check when you need them for installation and keeping huge items such as media consoles, coffee tables, or range seatings grouped in one section or room.

Categorizing things is simply gathering items used specifically for certain sections of the property. Accessories, for example, you can put them in a container labeled with different categories such as living room, bathroom, kitchen accessories, and so on. 

How to manage and keep track of your Inventory?

Given the nature of this business, you can easily lose track of your Staging items particularly when peak seasons, and you have multiple staging projects simultaneously. How do you check which items are installed in which project? How many furniture or chairs do you have left in your warehouse available for a new project?

This is where a suitable inventory tracking system will come in handy. Some uses excel in tracking inventory which is very good when you’re business is at the starting phase. When it starts to grow, you’ll see some of the limitations it can do. It can limit to single-person use, has a high risk of human error, and has no activity or transaction history that is inducive to having accountability. 

A Staging Inventory Management System, on the other hand, can do a lot of things. The following are things an inventory system can do. 

Important Features a Staging Inventory Management System must have

Product Catalog

A product catalog is the list of all items in your inventory. It’s not necessarily part of the inventory but this contains all the product information such as price, description, specification, weight, size, and so on.

Customizable fields

This is very helpful in organizing your inventory to easily identify every item you may have. You can either add or remove specifications depending on what information you need for business operations. Below are some of the essential fields you must have in your inventory:

  • Price field. Determines the original value of the item, essential when reporting a loss, or damage in times of a disaster. 
  • Purchase date. It can be used reference to calculate your item’s potential value when you decide to sell. Remember, trends and preferences change almost every day in every market so we can’t keep the same furniture and fixtures forever. 
  • Product description. It helps you quickly identify items by their characteristics such as color, size, and category

Downloadable report

You should be able to download a report especially when it’s time to pack up the things you installed in a specific project. Having a report like this is like having a checklist to make sure that everything installed for a certain project is coming back to your warehouse.

Transaction or Activity History

Staging inventory is very dynamic. There are times that many people need to move things around for different projects making it hard to keep track of which items are being checked out by who, or which items are being placed for what project. Having an inventory system that can track the user’s transactions such as the items that have been checked out, when, and to what project they were installed is the key to having everything accounted for.

Attaching pictures and other files

Having pictures of your items installed into a certain staging project can also help you file claims in case of fire or a disaster. You should be able to keep this in your inventory as well. Another perk of this is being able to install pictures of your items in your product catalog. This can help staging designers easily look for things and they won’t need to roam around the warehouse to pick which items to put in a project.

Inventory Shrinkage: Preventing Loss and Theft by Managing Inventory

What is Shrinkage?

Inventory shrinkage means the number of products in stock falls below the number indicated on the inventory list. The discrepancy could be caused by clerical errors, damaged or lost products, or theft from the point of purchase to the point of sale.

What are the Main Causes of Inventory Shrinkage?

There are different causes of inventory shrinkage depending on the type of business. In retail environments, these are some of the most common that contribute to inventory shrinkage:

  1. Employee theft and customer theft/shoplifting
  2. Administrative error
  3. Damaged or expired products

Missing items in the supply chain can be caused by a lot of factors. Inventory shrinkage in logistics and warehouses is caused by the factors listed above as well as the following:

  1. Over shipments and short-receipts 
  2. Substitution of good items to subquality items
  3. Re-classifications of goods

Employee Theft

Employee theft is one of the causes of inventory shrinkage. It refers to stealing or misuse of business property for personal reasons without documentation or authorization.

This is very damaging in every business. It happens every step along the process from manufacturing to shipping to warehousing to retail.

Employee Theft affects a lot of aspects of the business and primarily costs. To recoup the losses, businesses may try to increase orders to reach the ideal profit margin or increase the price of products. But with this method, they are putting more finances into acquiring goods to sell and might also lose price-sensitive consumers looking elsewhere to find similar products with lower prices. 

The things that are commonly stolen are not just money, it can also be the following:
  • Supplies Theft. Employees take office supplies such as items for manufacturing, computer peripherals, notebooks, and other small items that are still big in cost when accumulated
  • Merchandise theft. When employees are stealing items that are supposed to be sold to the customers.
  • Information and Time Theft. Information theft is trading a company’s private information or selling company designs and time theft is when an employee is not working while on the clock and still being paid.

Why Do Employees Steal?

Theft can be encouraged by several factors but the common factors are motivation and opportunity. One of the motives for people to take stuff is because they are underpaid. Employees may be overworked, therefore stealing something, whether it’s time or money, is acceptable since they believe it’s owed to them. 

The opportunity to steal is another contributor to employee theft. If the company’s security is lax, there will always be an opportunity to steal, which will motivate those employees who already have ulterior motives.

Why Does Employee Theft Matter?

If you’re wondering if employee theft is an expense, the answer is a big YES! and it’s a huge expense especially when it accumulates over time.

Though it may be costly to protect valuable assets and investigate employee theft, there are several reasons why businesses need to do so. Here are some of the negative results of employee theft:

Profit loss

Suppose a business loses inventory due to employee theft. In that case, it will be unable to recover the cost of the inventory because there will be no inventory to sell or return to the vendor.

Losing customers over the price increase

Some businesses try to recover losses by increasing the price of available goods to account for the losses in inventory. This means the customers will be the ones to shoulder the costs and this has a huge impact especially when the customers have a sensitive budget where a slight change in price affects their buying behavior, worst is when they try to look for other merchants for alternatives.

Problems in business operations

Because of theft losses, businesses may allocate more funds to other areas such as security. They invest in more security guards, CCTVs, and other technology just to decrease the occurrence. This results in a further decrease in profits and also a decrease in purchasing capacity.

How to Prevent Employee Theft?

Given the numerous negative effects of theft on every business, we must take action to minimize it. The following are the simple yet effective ways to reduce shrinkage:

  1. Tighten security.
  2. Hire and assign reliable employees.
  3. Check transactions each day.
  4. Reduce or eliminate human errors by using a system.
  5. Keeping a record of the losses.

Use of Inventory Management System

Human errors and omissions can be avoided by automating the inventory management process. A dedicated inventory management system can assist in reducing human stock handling and inventory shrinkage.

All people participating in the inventory management process will be held accountable by the software. It will track the inventory’s location from point to point and provide logs for all users that made adjustments to the inventory.

Aside from reducing risks of shrinkage, inventory management systems also offer other features that can optimize inventory processes. One of these features is inventory visibility which makes it easier to locate things in your inventory and make sure inventory levels are at the optimal level.

Conclusion

Because there are so many ways for one person to steal, organizations must make good use of resources to effectively protect the most valuable items. Using inventory management software is one method to reduce the risk of employee theft and inventory shrinkage in general, but you should also consider if employees feel appreciated and whether your gratitude for their efforts is reflected in their pay. This will eliminate any thoughts of resentment, which might lead to the motivation to steal goods they believe they are owed.

Why is Inventory Management Important for a Pharmacy?

What is inventory in pharmacy?

Inventory is the biggest asset of any pharmacy. Pharmacy inventory refers to the contents of medicine containers and all prescription drugs. How you handle pharmacy inventory decides whether you maximize revenue or yield losses.

Pharmacy inventory management is the life of business operations. Unopened, partially opened, in processed drugs are all part of the pharmacy inventory processes. How you track the movements of every product from every step is one way to minimize losses and maximize efficiency in handling your inventory.

There are various types of pharmacies, but the retail pharmacy and hospital pharmacy are the two most common. Both serve almost the same market (generally, patients in need of medications), but their inventories are commonly handled differently.

What is the difference between Hospital Pharmacy and Retail Pharmacy Inventory Management?

Retail Pharmacy

In a retail pharmacy setting, pharmacy technicians fill prescriptions written by doctors. They provide medicines that the consumer can handle independently and occasionally make substitutions based on availability. In terms of inventory, retail pharmacy inventory has a more expanded list of products, they have an open medication inventory and are always ready to cater to the majority of consumers who requires them.

Hospital Pharmacy

Hospital pharmacy, on the other hand, deals with more complicated cases. Pharmacy technicians at hospitals do the same duties as those in retail pharmacies, but their job is quite more complex because they also handle compounding medications. Inventory management in hospital pharmacy is a little different, hospitals keep a close inventory of drugs regularly used to treat more complicated medical cases.

Challenges in Pharmacy Inventory Management

Whatever type of pharmacy you handle, the problem you may always encounter is related to the inventory.

Problems and solutions in the pharmaceutical industry vary based on location, demand, and budget.

Pharmacy inventory management, especially in hospitals, deals with a different level of pressure. This is because drugs are being used by patients and having stockouts because of an improper way of handling inventory may result in big trouble.

To achieve a streamlined pharmacy inventory, you must first address the following questions:

  • What items do you have in stock?
  • Where are they being kept?
  • (For hospital pharmacy) Is the inventory on hand match what each department (compounding, dispensing, packaging, etc.) should have?
  • Are any items about to, or already expired?
  • Are there any missing items?

Every question above has answers that fall onto areas supposedly covered by inventory visibility and control. If some of the questions are not answered, problems might pile up in the long run.  

If you can confidently answer all of the above questions, you’re probably doing well with your inventory. If you’re having trouble doing so, you may need to review your inventory management system and protocols.

How Can Pharmacy Improve Inventory?

One of the solutions for the physical inventory you have is to invest in a high-quality medical storage unit. Modern storage containers offer benefits for organizing your inventory, making the most of your available space, and optimizing your workspace.

In addition to medical storage for your physical inventory, you must invest in a quality inventory management system that can help you streamline your daily operations. Using pharmacy inventory management systems, you may prepare and examine reports to analyze your stock, build plans to improve inventory control, keep track of the number of drugs in your inventory, and avoid stockouts and overstocks.

Most pharmacies these days rely on a rudimentary system that solves only the basics and often missed other inventory challenges. The following are some of the typical challenges pharmacy technicians face on a daily basis, as well as the solutions offered by pharmacy inventory management systems:

Inability to access operations data

Hundreds of medications and multiple locations (shelves, drawers, cabinets, etc.) must be managed in a pharmacy. It’s easy when you have a bird’s eye view of the entire process in this situation. Today’s technology allows everyone to view the status of each location, whether to evaluate the need for replenishment or to just do some routine auditing.

Tracking movements and inventory levels

Inventory levels refer to the number of goods or supplies you have on hand across your whole distribution network. Pharmacies establish minimum stock levels that must always be met in order for a drug item to be dispensed. The system will notify the management when an item drops below the threshold, triggering them to make an immediate order for replenishment.

This seems like a basic principle, but with a manual inventory system, this involves significant time investment. With inventory management systems, you can easily keep track of everything you take out and even the items that are moved from one location to another.

Update pricing and put proper costing information

When updating pricing manually in an excel sheet is very time-consuming and prone to human error. Inventory management solutions offer search fields where you can search for specific drugs and update not only the pricing but also other product information. This boosts tracking revenue by properly getting expense data.

Expiration dates

Expired items lead to huge capital losses.  The common strategy is to rotate stock on the shelves. The sooner the product expiration dates should be rotated to the front and the later the expiry date should be put to the rear. 

Even though it’s a straightforward procedure, human error can cause it to fail. Some pharmacy inventory management systems have a function that allows you to adjust each product’s expiration date and receive a signal when that date approaches. This way, you’ll know which things to distribute first.

Everything is manual

It’s great when a pharmacy distributor provides an inventory system as a reward for purchasing from them, but most distributors don’t, and pharmacies must figure out how to manage their inventory as efficiently as possible on their own. Many pharmacy managers spend weeks or even months experimenting with inventory solutions to see if they can help them with even the most basic issues. Worse, they have to manage manually while waiting for the optimal solution, which means they end up roaming around, manually counting items, and checking their status.

Even simple tasks like moving items from one location to another sometimes require a long process just to keep track of every change made. But with a pharmacy inventory management system, you may effortlessly drag and drop things between places, use barcode scanners to search for items and locations, and update quantity and pricing information.  You won’t have to worry about losing track of every item because everything is recorded, including who moved them, when they were moved, and where they went.

Shrinkage in Pharmacy

Before the pandemic, there are already challenges in every inventory management. But when COVID spread, even the uncommon problems now add up and became frequent.

One of the biggest challenges right now in pharmacy inventory management is shrinkage. Because of the strong demand for pandemic-related commodities and the limited supply, most pharmacies may have attempted to buy in bulk. If this is the case, pharmacy inventory technicians must strengthen their monitoring of those items because people may act inappropriately in pandemic scenarios, resulting in employee theft and shrinkages. Unrecorded losses are frequently detected only during routine inventory audits or, even worse after the item has already been declared as out of stock (when it shouldn’t have been).

Shrinkage concerns can now be resolved with the help of modern technology. Pharmacy inventory management systems keep track of everything from purchase through repackaging, storage, and putting items on shelves for sale. Every product movement is recorded, including who last touched it, when it happened, and where it was located. Aside from that, pharmacy inventory management systems provide centralized data management, allowing you to check if inventory is still at its optimal level and that you can alert the distributor quickly if it isn’t. Shrinkages and employee theft are less likely to occur when everything is accounted for in a system like this.

Conclusion

Each pharmacy is unique. They are comparable only because of the common processes they use to optimize management. What keeps the business running is knowing what your minimum/maximum order is, what the suggested order is, what you actually ordered, what you have on hand, what to place on the shelf, and how much they cost. It is critical that all these are answered based on accurate data from your inventory management system.

The ideal inventory management doesn’t stop with knowing what and how much inventory you have. It should extend to knowing where everything is located at any given moment.

Inventory control guarantees that the proper amount of inventory is on hand. The most significant features are demand planning and shrinkage minimization. To make the best business decisions possible, inventory control requires reliable data all of the time.

The bottom line is that whatever the issue is, it usually boils down to visibility and control challenges, so if you’re having trouble optimizing your stocks and demand planning, you might want to dig a little deeper into these two critical areas and see if your current inventory practices or solutions address these two important aspects of pharmacy inventory management.

Managing Trunk Stock and Maintenance Spare Parts Inventory

The way we handle inventory is determined by the inventory kinds we have. When we think of inventory management, we normally think of direct inventory, which are raw materials for manufacturing, and retail or wholesale, which are direct inventory purchases that are shelved to be sold.

What is spare parts inventory?

Spare parts inventory refers to interchangeable items such as service parts, replacement parts, or repair parts. These items are so important that they generally have a negative impact on overall operations when not readily available or cannot be obtained in the shortest time possible.

Multiple locations and vehicles are common with this type of inventory which results in many problems that manual tracking can’t manage. Trunk stock and spare parts inventory are either very dynamic or very static and it requires a different strategy than traditional retail inventory management.

Classification of Spare Parts Inventory

1. Service Parts

Trunk stock and spare parts inventory in the field service industry is different from inventory in manufacturing. Items from this type of inventory are most likely kept at a hospital or move around a lot in a vehicle, making them more dynamic. The following are some of the issues and difficulties that come with having a trunk stock inventory:

Storing too many items

Field technicians have a habit of always having a large number of spare parts with them. It’s possible that they just used a small portion of the stock, keeping the remainder in the trunk. These things are not bringing in immediate revenue, thus the costs are not being covered right away.

Unaccountability

Trunk stock and spare parts are very hard to track. Field technicians often lose track of how much inventory they have when they are focused on providing services to customers. They may recognize what they have but usually don’t know how much they have. Items can be lost easily because of no accountability and very low visibility.

Repackaging kits to make them complete

Medical trunk stock is for those partially used surgical/medical kits that must be returned to a stocking location, sanitized, and repackaged with missing parts to make it a complete set.  It’s hard to keep an accurate record of these processes when doing it manually.

2. Maintenance Parts in Manufacturing

The majority of inventory management knowledge does not apply to spare parts in manufacturing. These are not things that should be put on the shelf to be sold, this type of inventory management has its own set of rules. They are static inventory that is kept on shelves to service equipment that’s critical to large industrial plants, which can’t afford to have delays due to equipment failures because it will cost them a lot of money.

The following are the things you need to look into when managing a spare parts inventory.

Slow-Moving Items

With a common type of inventory management, we think we don’t need slow-moving items. In spare parts inventory management for huge manufacturing plants, however, slow-moving goods or those that don’t move at all such as insurance spares are the stuff you should wish you weren’t using. This is because you have to use them only when something bad happened or production was interrupted.

Expensive Stockout Costs

The actual price of an item may be irrelevant in large manufacturing plants because the stock-out cost is calculated based on how much impact it can have on the entire operation. That is why inventory administrators should think differently when determining how many things they need to keep on hand to ensure that operations are not disrupted.

Having a Centralized System

Goals or updates in the manufacturing or processing operations should be cascaded effectively to maximize the efficiency of each operation. This has to do with a centralized data management system, that allows everyone to know what you have on hand, and where are they located in order to assist in manufacturing or processing activities.

Spare Parts Inventory Management Systems

ERP systems are commonly best for retail inventory management. The problems and other things you need to look into in spare parts management are best handled by inventory management systems that are specifically made for this type of inventory.

Here’s how inventory management systems can help.

  • Field Service. When storing dynamic items, it’s easy to lose track of everything. With barcoding, inventory mapping, and activity history, cases of missing items and theft would decrease. Managers will be able to see which items were checked out, who checked them out, and where they are located. Everything that comes in and out of the warehouse is accounted for and it is easier to locate products.
  • Manufacturing. Though spare parts inventory moves very slowly, it still plays an important role in the business. The goal is to see exactly where items are located and what quantities are on hand at all times. When these things are needed, managers must locate them quickly to reduce downtime costs, and because the cost is so high, they should be keen on understanding what and how much they have on hold.

No one buys inventory with the intention of wasting money.  How you handle operations and what system you use, determines the outcome for trunk stock and spare parts management.

Some companies find cost-cutting opportunities by examining their inventory to evaluate if the things they have are truly necessary for day-to-day operations. Since trunk stock and spare parts inventory is very dynamic,  inventory managers have put in a lot of work to keep track of almost everything.

They check whether parts and supplies are available or not, what needs to be returned to the stocking point for repacking, and inventory movement in general. The inventory management system can make this process much easier by boosting inventory visibility, it assists businesses in assuring accountability, avoiding shrinkage, and decreasing purchase order errors.

Simplifying Inventory Management for Municipalities and Other Government Agencies

Municipalities are one of the busiest organizations. Unlike manufacturing and warehousing, this organization has different departments with numerous people needing supplies and peripherals to perform their jobs. The police stations, fire stations, and health units are some of those departments that need different types of supplies and equipment.

Manual operations frequently result in misplaced or lost tools, consumable supplies, and other peripherals. The manual data gathering procedures of the past are no longer capable of keeping the warehousing needs of today even for small businesses and government agencies. 

Accurate inventory stock levels are also difficult to determine due to inaccuracies and backlogs. Manual procedures, in other words, are a waste of time and money.

The Inventory Process

Inventory management tasks such as procurement, receipt, recording, issuing, and storekeeping are being divided among officials to manage inventory for municipalities. Segregation of duties is beneficial to avoid potential errors and fraud. 

What’s best for organizations with processes like this is to have a centralized system that gives real-time information and inventory visibility. The organizational structure alone is very extended and when it comes to handling the multiple locations and departments, it’s hard to keep track of which department has what supplies and assets, and how many items are left in the inventory.

Optimizing the inventory itself might appear to be a difficult task, however, with the help of today’s technology, it is still possible to enhance the management of inventory while reducing the cost. Automated technologies like inventory management software are being used by organizations to streamline inventory processes and be in control of everything on hand to become more efficient and always record-ready for auditing and reporting.

The best features to consider in an inventory management system for organizations like municipalities are the following

  • Inventory mapping
  • Inventory loss prevention
  • Inventory level indicator and expiration date
  • Barcoding
  • Drag and drop items between locations

Inventory mapping

It is one of the new features in some of the inventory management systems. Municipalities have numerous departments which are equivalent to multiple locations that need to be managed. Inventory mapping offers a dashboard where these locations can be mapped based on their actual location in an office. Users can create sublocations such as rooms, shelves, cabinets, and even drawers and vehicles and zoom into these locations to view contents. 

Inventory loss prevention

Inventory loss can occur for a variety of causes, including human mistakes or fraudulent conduct such as theft. Loss may be avoided by keeping track of inventory activities. With activity history, important information such as who, when, and why supplies and assets are moved or checked out is tracked and recorded.

Inventory level indicator and expiration date

The inventory level indicator is quite useful when it comes to keeping the ideal inventory level. Storekeepers will know what items and when replenishments should be ordered based on the selected threshold. Expiration dates aren’t just for perishable goods, they can also be used as a reminder for routine maintenance or auditing. This is also where the useful life of certain equipment may be set to determine if it performed its function for the specified amount of time or to use as a reference if it has to be replaced soon.

Barcoding

Barcoding is a common kind of automated data collecting. It is a proven and reliable approach that has been used for decades. Barcode labels can be developed and attached to assets and supplies. Each barcode label contains important information about the object such as the description and the identification number.

Drag and drop items between locations

Drag and drop is very useful in day-to-day operations for quick transactions like distributing consumable supplies and assigning equipment to each office department.

Automated inventory management ensures data collection is accurate. It’s easier to optimize inventories and recognize where adjustments are needed. The ultimate goal is to achieve efficiency and get a hold of accurate and detailed information anytime.

Ineffective inventory management has a significant impact on both cost and service delivery. Inventory shortages, in particular, affect service delivery, while excess inventory leads to higher costs. As a result, one of the most important goals of inventory management is to guarantee that the ideal amount of inventory is accessible to achieve defined service levels while keeping prices low.

If your department’s existing approach to inventory management continues to cause issues, you may want to reconsider your present procedures. Municipalities and other public sectors do not have standard inventory management since it is dependent on the needs of the organization to carry out its mission. 

Inventory Visibility for Cold Storage Warehouses

As consumers, we are always concerned about the dairy, meat, and other foods we consume. Our focus is to take care of their storage and quality. The companies that make these items, like us, take efforts to ensure the safety of such commodities. 

The difference is that when it comes to the manufacture and storage of such items, a cold room or a cold storage warehouse is more suitable than a regular refrigerator. These storages exist in different forms depending on the need of items but all of these are restricted to a certain temperature to keep the product safe.

Problems with Cold Storage

Aside from the problems in the facility, another common problem in cold rooms and warehouses is the customers’ increasing number of specific demands based on their product requirements. Perishable products, pharmaceutical products, flowers and plants, and even artworks are examples of these diverse items that require different conditions. A warehouse that fits all is not possible. 

With so many different needs, it has become usual to design specialized cold storage and assign distinct sections for each type of product in order to meet environmental requirement conditions. This also involves the use of multiple sections, racks, shelves, and temperature variations while storing them.

The above conditions result in many locations and sublocations that are the root cause of low inventory visibility. Warehouses are large enough to generate numerical confusion because of tons of items that are in and out of the facility.

Why Visibility is important?

Visibility is critical in warehouse management, whether for cold storage or its dry counterpart. When a client requests an audit to check for accuracy, missing items, and overall process, the management must be able to comply with the request with the least amount of error possible, or the customer’s trust will be lost.

When it comes to warehouse management, inventory visibility should be a key priority. You must know exactly where, how, who, or what section of the room each product is kept, and you must be able to quickly identify those things when the need arises to avoid delays and client complaints.

There are processes that need to be followed. From the arrival of goods to packing and dispatch, every step in this process requires traceability to make everything accountable.

The best way to inventory visibility is to have an inventory management system. With many locations and thousands of boxes and pallets, a bird’s eye perspective of the entire operation is a must. Users may simply identify goods and check quantities in a given location using the management system’s search field capability and keep track of everything that happens to the inventory in the activity history.

Imagine yourself wandering through a warehouse, counting boxes and pallets. Isn’t it simple? Now doing the same job but in a freezing cold environment. When you have a system that can pull data fast, it saves time and effort to execute activities like this. You may also reduce the frequency of counting because when everything is digitized and every change is being tracked, then there will be very minimal errors. If an issue with the inventory count occurs, you can identify who was the last person accountable.

Optimizing Evidence Room

Evidence management is defined as the administration and control of evidence related to an event in order for it to be utilized to prove the circumstances of an event. 

Every piece of evidence should be preserved of its integrity before it may be utilized in court or tested by independent parties. Hence, every item in the evidence room should be looked after carefully. 

Despite the fact that every agency is aware of the need for having a pristine chain of custody, it is still frequently mishandled due to the challenges they are facing. We can all agree that an evidence room is not as simple as recording and keeping when dealing with thousands of pieces of evidence and the pressure of maintaining a proper record and safekeeping.

Keeping Evidence Room Under Control

Thousands of crimes are committed each year, resulting in an increasing amount of evidence being held in warehouses. From collecting to documentation to processing and storage, it’s already a tedious process. Keeping the evidence chain of custody and securing it while maintaining it is another challenging task. 

Evidence room inventory checking and auditing are critical to ensuring the integrity and overall process. It depends on the agency’s preference when they conduct the audit, but it is important to do so for various reasons. 

Stories of missing and stolen evidence are common. These are caused by disorganization and low visibility.

One particular reason is to ensure that all evidence is present and properly accounted for. By taking evidence and physically checking them, you can be certain that it is still where it should be. By doing this, you’re not just ensuring that the items you’re looking for are in their designated location, you’re also checking for items that aren’t supposed to be there. 

Auditing inventories can avoid not only misplaced evidence, but also helps in preventing missing items, especially when high-value evidence is involved, such as money, drugs, and guns. 

Best Practices for Evidence Room Management

Another way to keep the evidence room under control is to follow these practices:

  1. Keeping a correct and complete record.
    • Documentation is commonly taken for granted. Evidence technicians, managers, and other parties involved are sometimes unaware of the importance of detailed documentation until something goes wrong. Evidence could be misplaced or lose its value when improperly handled. 
  2. Keeping the evidence’s value and integrity.
    • Documentation is useless if the evidence’s value and integrity are jeopardized. Keep sensitive evidence, such as biological and other high-value evidence in storage that fits its condition. For keeping the evidence’s integrity, there’s no other best way but to keep an excellent chain of custody.
  3.  Automate the process.
    • Most evidence rooms now have a system in place for documenting, preserving, or auditing objects on a regular basis. This is a sensible move for agencies that have transitioned to using an evidence management system. Things can be automated to save time and ensure that the chain of custody protocols are flawless.

Evidence Management Systems

Evidence is categorized depending on its types, such as weapons, biological items, properties, and documents. Each category requires corresponding storage to maintain its value. An evidence room can expand from rooms, racks, shelves, to multiple locations depending on the types of evidence on hand and the inventory level.

With multiple locations in the evidence room, it’s hard to pinpoint where every item is located, especially those ones that have been in store for a very long time. Without proper auditing, these items might also be misplaced or lost eventually. Checking evidence details and auditing is no longer an exhausting process with the help of an evidence management system. These solutions can help with the easy location of items, automated management, auditing, and reporting.

Reasons to Adopt an Evidence Management System

  • Search option and visual map. Evidence management software includes a search feature that makes it simple to locate stuff. Others even have a visual map that shows you what’s going on in the evidence room from a bird’s eye view. There are also indicators that show where items are and the ability to move them between locations.
  • Activity history. It provides an activity history for auditing purposes. Information such as who, when, and why evidence is transferred, checked-in/out, or released is documented and accessible anytime for reporting.
  • Track miscellaneous inventory and supplies. Personnel can track not only evidence, but also miscellaneous supplies and inventories, such as lab supplies, equipment, forms, and packaging kits, that they need to conduct their jobs.

Visibility is crucial when controlling a large number of important items. You can’t just rely on a list that provides only basic information. By adopting a centralized system like this, agencies can keep the evidence room under control and preserve the integrity of each piece of evidence at the same time.

Managing the Inventory for Search and Rescue Supplies and Equipment

Rescue workers and emergency responders are the first to arrive on the scene after a disaster, often in unfamiliar surroundings and in inclement weather, ready to save lives and secure the environment to help protect the lives of those who come after them. Around piles of rubble, other debris, or collapsed structures, rescue workers and emergency responders may be involved in emergency medical operations involving victim rescue or body recovery.

Search and rescue (SAR) operations are extremely difficult. It has different sub-fields that can be deployed depending on the situation or geographical location, such as ground, sea, natural disaster, aerial, and mounted search and rescues. 

Due to the complexity and varying requirements of different operations, SAR teams require different supplies and equipment, which can be difficult to manage at times, particularly for those that are being moved constantly from one location to another.

Specialized vehicles, equipment, and supplies must be purchased and maintained (all are expensive tasks), and the logistics of managing these assets can be complex. Still, the constant demand and meticulous management for these supplies and equipment must be met in order for the SAR teams to function effectively.

Search and Rescue Supplies and Equipment

During operations, there are a lot of important things to consider but one of those is to make sure that the team is fully equipped with the essential supplies and equipment. There are items that come out from a storeroom and stay outside for a long time such as an individual response kit that is carried by the responder all the time and other items that come out only when needed. 

Personal protection and specialized equipment are the things that help the operations become successful. These items must be managed carefully and should be available immediately specially for operations where rapid response is necessary to maximize positive outcomes.

Ways to Manage SAR Supplies and Equipment

SAR  equipment consists of five types of equipment: medical, rescue, communications, technical support, and logistics. Task groups require certain allocation and the quantity depends on how small or big the groups are. 

It is essential to record the equipment’s maintenance history. To know if equipment requires maintenance, the SAR team should keep track of how the assets were used, for what purposes, and by whom. There are ways to keep track of this information, these are:

  • Manual tracking. The manual tracking process is often paper logs that can be easily crumbled and misplaced. This process usually misses detailed and important information which results in just guessing equipment’s required maintenance.
  • Automated Equipment Tracking. Automated tracking uses software or a system that records important information such as cost, location, movement, historical use, and maintenance details, as well as expiration dates for some items.

Improving Search and Rescue Inventory Management

Search and rescue has a dynamic inventory. It has varieties of assets and multiple locations designated for every emergency and operation. The SAR team’s primary job in every operation is to assist citizens who are in distress. When there’s an emergency, every responder is so focused on providing assistance, and oftentimes, they don’t even think about keeping track of the equipment that comes in and out of the storeroom.

Nowadays, manual tracking of assets is no longer recommended. It makes it impossible to record everything accurately and swiftly and usually results in a lack of efficiency in equipment tracking. 

Automated tracking or tracking using an equipment management system is the key to improving data records. Every supply and equipment is labeled with a barcode that can be quickly scanned during check-out or check-in. The team will no longer have trouble locating assets thanks to automation, as it will have records of who has them and when they were last used in the activity history. The team can also easily make a report by downloading the recorded information in the system.