Introduction
Inventory is expensive!!
It's preferable to reduce inventory levels, which in turn improves the balance sheet. Managing an optimising inventory in the factory can help with this, and give visibility to everyone who needs to track inventory progress through the factory.
There are two elements to managing inventory operations which are closely tied together, and which are covered in the following detailed articles:
Many people would consider these to be the same, and to a large extent they are, because at a high level they both cover:
Where inventory physically exists in the factory.
Movement of inventory between locations.
Keeping track of stock levels.
Managing the status and quality of materials.
I've broken them out here because they are managed by separate operational teams:
Operators are responsible for shopfloor operations.
Logistics teams are responsible for warehouse and logistics operations.
This means these functions can be managed by different applications. If this is the case, it is crucial for robust and deep integrations to support the movement of inventory between systems at the correct handover points. The decision process around where to set boundaries between warehousing and production crucial when designing how these systems interact. Managing and optimising inventory across the factory is crucial for efficiency and cost savings.
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