By José Claudio Brito, specialist in management software and executive director of ADV Tecnologia
Start to properly manage your inventory from the moment the goods arrive until they leave. See which steps are important:
1. Standardize receipt
The entry of materials must be judicious and obey a firm quality policy. Thus, you avoid having defective products in your stock, for example. Upon receipt from the supplier, check all items and classify them.
In this case, one of the most used methodologies is the ABC classification, through which you separate items by relevance in terms of price, demand and ease of replacement.
2. Manage by demands
Analyzing the sales reports as well as stock entries and exits, it is easy to identify those products that have the greatest demand, right? With this data in hand, start prioritizing what is most sought after by customers.
This way you keep an adequate stock of each item, without having to deal with constant leftovers or absences of products.
3. Focus on duration
Once you know the demand for each product, you can also determine how long your stock will last. If you sell 100 items of product A per day and have 500 of those products in stock, for example, the expected duration is 5 days.
And why do this account? Simple: to program exactly when it will be necessary to request new products from the supplier before the stock runs out. Without doing this account you can face loss of sales.
After all, the quantity of items in stock can be easily underestimated if you don't know your demand.
4. Separate your stock
The products with the highest output should always stay ahead of those with the lowest demand, preferably in easily accessible places. That alone, already optimizes a significant time in the separation of the orders. In addition, it ensures agility in delivery to the customer.
Furthermore, this action also impacts the quality of service provided in the sales sector, which increases customer satisfaction and the number of transactions in the period.
5. Implement a system
Instead of mobilizing your team for days and days on end in the inventory inventory, bet on an accuracy system. That is, make periodic, cyclical and agile checks, allowing your stock to be always up to date. ERP is the ideal software for companies that need to have an impeccable stock.
6. Automate inventory
Spreadsheets, controls in books and separate notes. All of this compromises the effectiveness of your inventory management, as it takes time and opens up loopholes for errors.
The best thing to do, therefore, is to adopt an efficient inventory management system. It needs to be tailored to the needs of your company and promote the organization of the flow of goods.
7. Perform periodic cleaning to have an impeccable stock
To sanitize the stock is to eliminate those products that have expired, broken, with outdated applicability or simply that are no longer sold. But in order not to lose all the invested value, those items that are still useful can be sold at cost, donated, recycled or reused for functions other than production or sale.
This practice allows you to keep the physical space of the stock reduced and maintain the turnover of goods according to your demand.
Inventory management is absolutely fundamental to the success of a company, as it allows to minimize investments and maximize results, conquering competitiveness in the market.
Disclaimer: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies.
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