Category Archive

Continuing disruptions Ever since COVID19 appeared, there has been much comment in media channels about the need to have resilience within an economy, in organisations and through their supply chains. Recognising the challenge is a good start, but the need is to identify which step on the road to resilience should be the prime project. It is now good policy … Read More

Supply Chains of your business A reader has asked which of the many elements of supply chains should be emphasised as companies take steps to change the objective of supply chains from ‘cost down’ to ‘value add’, in an era of disruptions? While each business will select its own list of short-term ‘to do’ actions to achieve improvements, there should … Read More

Inventory for dependent items The role of Inventory is to provide a buffer that recognises variability in demand for items and the lead times required to meet those demands. Variability in supply and its lead times is also a factor, due to disruptions through supply chains. The disruptions in supply chains are likely to continue, especially with the influence of … Read More

ABC inventory approach Inventory is too often considered as one lump of cost, rather than as a collection of individual stock keeping units (SKUs), each with their own pattern of demand and supply. To provide some differentiation between high and low selling items, a familiar process is to group SKUs into ABC groups. This is based on observations by the … Read More

Cost of holding inventory There is not a ‘right’ decision about the level of inventories that work best for your business. However there is a need to know the cost and potential for cost reduction from decisions about inventories. To cover for unplanned events, an organisation can reduce its total operational costs by holding a calculated ‘safety stock’ in excess … Read More