How Do You Get Things Into Inventory?
Initial production has to be placed into inventory. It must be a reliable process that your production line employees can easily and quickly accomplish. This is a very important aspect of inventory management. What did I produce and where is it going?
What Do You Have In Inventory?
Having tools that allow you to quickly and easily see what you have in inventory are crucial. When do you need to sell? How much space do you have left? What should you be discounting? What items need to really move this week? Do I have enough quantity of the right condition to fulfill this new order? With the appropriate meta data in your inventory system you can easily answer all these questions and more. With the right data you can also do high level space planning.
Where Is Your Inventory?
For growers with many greenhouses or multiple field or farm locations or facilities a good inventory management system is even more valuable,
What Is The Condition Of Your Inventory?
A good inventory management system will allow you to record the condition of your items if necessary, for your business. Maybe you differentiate between landscape quality and retail quality. Knowing how much of each type you have can make you more responsive to opportunities.
How Do You Move Inventory?
Knowing where things are helps you avoid wasting time trying to find inventory. And we all know that paying employees to find items, while sometimes necessary, is not the best use of the labor dollars. A good inventory management system will help you efficiently move items so that you are always aware of where they are and spend less time and money playing ‘find the plants’.
How Do You Generate Pick Or Load Tickets?
When it comes time to fulfill orders does your system generate necessary pull orders or load tickets? This is crucial in making sure you get the right product to the right customer.
How Do You Manage In-Field Data Collection?
Some systems provide remote devices such as handheld computers, tables or similar to collect inventory information in the field. Other growers use written forms to collect data that is then taken back to the office and entered. Regardless of your preferred data entry method, your inventory management system should support your needs. Data entry and tracking is a crucial activity to make sure your inventory STAYS accurate.
How Do You Handle Cycle Counts And Full Inventory Reconciliations?
Another key aspect of an accurate perpetual inventory is the ability to do cycle counts quickly and reliably. These provide periodic spot checks to allow you to spot problems early and reconcile them. Good reconciliation practices can help you avoid over or under reporting of inventory – either of which can cost you money unnecessarily.
These are just a few of the key areas that an effective inventory management system will help.
Find Out More
Learn more about how GrowPoint and GrowPoint Cloud can help you manage your operational inventory with sophisticated, yet easily approachable tools.
Learn more about how DTS can help you with Vendor Managed Inventory or your pay by scan customers or better yet contact us today for a demo.