Inbound Planning: Scope for improvement
The basis of accurate and robust inventory management starts with having accurate information for the inbound operations. Having adequate level of information in advance also provides the opportunity to significantly improve inbound productivity. Establishing an advanced inbound planning and execution framework does not require too much of re-engineering effort for the supply chain. To start with one should aim to make good use of the already available information and observe a set of rules to utilize the information most effectively.
If you conduct a survey by asking supply chain executives to name the five most significant areas for improvement in operations support systems, the results are likely to reflect better inventory planning as one of the target areas. Setting up a more effective way of maintaining inventory data integrity or establishing higher productivity and capacity utilization are likely to be at the top of the list. As inefficient inventory data integrity results in high levels of excess non-productive labor, underutilized distribution center (DC) capacity and reduced customer service levels due to unfulfilled or late orders.
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