Stock management and responsibility
Stock management and the responsibility for this traditionally lies with the supply chain or logistics manager. Yet an isolated approach to inventory management is an essential part of the supply chain.
Stock management
In fact, stock management is a shared responsibility because the influence of other functions partly determines the height and stock points. Good inventory management is only possible if purchasing, production, planning, R&D and sales work well together.
Inventory management is often a difficult compromise because the optimization of the supply chain loses out when it comes to production costs or service levels towards the customer. Also, suppliers do not always cooperate because an optimization of your stock is frustrated from their production or throughput times.
Evaluate continuously
Continuously evaluating your inventory is inevitable with the current increase in complexity and costs of your supply chain. Inventory plays a critical role in your profitability, cash flow and out-of-stock and redundant stock risks. This requires a delicate balance between internal and external interests that often conflict.
Finding the right balance between the different interests and priorities is one of the most important tasks of inventory management. Increasing insight and control over your stock makes a significant contribution to the value of your stock. Forms of Collaborative Planning and Service, real-time insight into your stock throughout the chain offers you more chance of responding to changes in time.
Director position
The stock or supply manager will then have to act more as a director to ensure that the various functions within the organization work together more. A supply chain manager will have to mediate more, formulate transcending interests and goals and realize buy-in. A more optimal supply chain is then the result of his director’s position.
The supply chain manager will not only have to have the ability to align his peers, he / she must also have sufficient insight and understanding of the complexity and challenges that his peers face. Where supply chain managers often focus on in-depth knowledge of their supply chain, they will have to broaden to a more general knowledge. A supply chain manager must be able to ‘tie the strings’.
Do you want to know more about stock management or how I can be of service to you as a result of this article? Please contact us by mail: groen@addvise.net or 0626198500
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