In your company, when does inventory management start?

It’s not a trick question. The requirement to manage inventory has to start somewhere.

courtesy of Intermec

• Does it start when a customer places an order?  Maybe.

• Does it start when someone checks to see if the items ordered by the customer are in Stock?  Possible.

• Does it start when manufacturing sends in a purchase request for raw materials or components? Could be a possibility.

• Does it start when an order is placed with the supplier for raw materials, finished goods or components needed to fill a customer order? What about a manufacturing order to build to stock? Interesting.

• Does it start when the shipment arrives at the Receiving door and each item is checked against the order? That sounds right.

• Does it start when the items are moved out of Receiving to another location? Definitely part of the inventory process.

• Does it start when the finished goods are moved into customer inventory? Has to be in there somewhere

• Does it end when the customer order is filled and shipped? Or does that start the cycle over again? Hmmm?

Does your inventory management system work the way you want it to? Is it as accurate as you need it to be? Is inventory movement accounted for from end to end?  What about the Lot Numbers?

A True Story:

On a recent visit to a manufacturer, the supervisor pointed to a forklift carrying a pallet of raw materials between buildings. In the breezeway the operator stopped and placed the pallet on the floor and drove off.

“That probably came from Receiving,” he said, “Sure, we know it arrived. Somebody checked it in receiving and sent this driver with instructions to “put it someplace,” which he did. But I know from past history that our system doesn’t know where it is. It knows it arrived, but it doesn’t know where it went. As far as the system is concerned, this pallet is still located in Receiving. The reason is that the breezeway between buildings isn’t a location in our system where we store received materials. Unless that driver comes back later to pick it up, it will stay here until somebody ‘finds’ it.”

Does inventory ever get found? “Not often enough.”

The answer is a robust inventory management system that accurately checks items against outstanding orders as they are received and then tracks every movement of that inventory from Receiving to Staging to Quality Inspection to Inventory to Manufacturing to Finished Goods to Customer Order to Ship Staging and then to the Customer.

If your inventory management system doesn’t track inventory the way you need it to be tracked, what you don’t know can cost you.


A3 Technologies is software developer and systems integrator serving the manufacturing, distribution and warehousing markets. The company has carefully designed an inventory and warehouse management system – Fontana IMS – that warehouses, manufacturers and distributors can utilize to address inventory movement and other issues.

For more information, please E-mail us at sales@a3-tech.com or call us toll free
at 888-461-4222 or visit our website at www.a3-tech.com

Coping With Strict Pallet Labeling Requirements?

Is your company forced to comply with exacting pallet label printing and placement requirements like these?

Label Format:
SUPPLIER shall print 4 in. x 6 in. labels in portrait orientation. Bar code symbology used on the label shall be Codabar printed with a narrow bar of .0075 in. in width maximum. Bar coded information will be placed as specified on the label. Labels shall be printed using the direct thermal transfer process in black on a white background (no substitutes are permitted).

Label Position on Pallets:
All shipments from SUPPLIER must be on standard 48 x 48 wooden shipping pallets. No exceptions will be permitted. Shipping labels must be affixed to pallets as follows: The label shall be positioned 6 in. above the level of the floor and 2.75 in. from the right hand leading edge of the pallet; one label shall be placed in this position on each of the four sides of the pallet.

Penalty for Non-Compliance:
Failure to comply with these directions will result penalties assessed to the SUPPLIER for orders received with non-compliant labels (including positioning). XYZ Company shall determine compliance with these directives upon receipt of shipments from SUPPLIER.

How bad could the penalty be? One well-known retailer deducts 3% of the shipment’s value (not the pallet’s) from the manufacturers invoice.

That hurts!

What can you do? As they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words.

Is there a way to prove compliance with strict labeling requirements?

For information about how Fontana IMS Linked-2 can help you meet strict compliance labeling directives, call 888-461-4222, e-mail us at sales@a3-tech.com, or visit our website at www.A3-Tech.com.

A3 Technologies Certifies Intermec CK3 for Fontana IMS

courtesy of Intermec

The Intermec CK3, a wireless data collection terminal that uses the Windows Mobile 6.1 client, has been added to the broad family of mobile computers, desktop and portable printers certified by A3 Technologies for use on the company’s inventory and warehouse management software, Fontana IMS.


for complete article click here



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The Digital Camera “Work Around”

Top 5 reasons using a digital camera isn’t a good work around in the warehouse:


5. “Anybody seen the camera?”

4. “Darn, the batteries are dead.”

3. “Does anyone know how to plug this into the PC?”

2. “Jimmy! Didn’t know you drove a Harley! Sweet! Get a shot of me on it!”

And the # 1 reason a digital camera isn’t a good workaround in the warehouse?

“Does anyone remember which pictures go with which shipment?”

Is there a better way to get images of damaged freight?

You bet there is: On-line and in real-time with Fontana IMS from A3 Technologies.

To learn more, call A3 Technologies at 888-461-4222,
e-mail us at sales@a3-tech.com,
or visit our website at http://www.a3-tech.com/.

COMMITMENT TO QUALITY

WHAT FEDEX CAN TEACH INVENTORY MANAGERS

COMMITMENT TO QUALITY

It’s funny, but many companies treat quality as a given. “We deliver quality.” “Our products are the ¬highest quality.” “Quality is our only job.”

Even in their “mission statement” has the obligatory commitment to quality. “We strive to deliver products and services that set new standards for quality.” “Our mission is to raise the bar in quality products and services.” “We are committed to the highest quality standards.”
An east Tennessee friend calls statements like these “Chin Music.”

It’s not a complement.

Quality is not “chin music” at FedEx. FedEx is obsessed with delivering quality at every level.

One FedEx poster says it all: “IF we are satisfied with delivering just 99.9% of our packages on-time every day, 8 million packages a year won’t get there when we said they would.”

Getting it right 99.9% of the time is unacceptable.

Quality improves performance. Did you know that FedEx couriers have a set procedure for entering and exiting their trucks? It is the most efficient way to get in or out of a vehicle and it also is the safest. The reason is simple: Drivers who are injured cannot deliver packages. Drivers who do not lock their doors have their packages stolen.
FedEx drivers seldom get injured and they don’t get their packages stolen. They follow the procedure without fail. And they practice it in competitions.

Over the years FedEx has spent millions of dollars and man-hours developing and implementing LEAN and Six Sigma improvements. The result is a level of quality from one end of the organization to the other. What’s startling is that the process of improving quality never stops. Employees are encouraged to develop new and better ways to get their job done. They are driven to eliminate wasted time, wasted motion, wasted effort. Everything is documented, reviewed, tested and analyzed before it’s put into the operations manual.

Is your inventory management system designed around delivering quality?

How are orders for raw materials generated? Entered? Verified? Routed? Received? What causes a received item to be flagged for Quality Inspection? How is it tracked from receiving, to quality and into stock? Is item put away developed so the operator is routed to the correct location? Does your system automatically cycle count inventory locations at put away or at picking? Is your warehouse organized so the highest volume inventory, whether for customer orders or manufacturing are located at the point nearest where they will be used?

Going back to the previous article on Custodial Possession, do your warehouse employees feel a sense of ownership and obligation in completing their tasks and delivering the highest possible quality result?

Coming up next: TOTAL CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: THE MOTOROLA REVOLUTION

WHAT FEDEX CAN TEACH INVENTORY MANAGERS - A SENSE OF URGENCY

Have you ever sat in line at the drive-in waiting for someone, anyone, to ask you for your order? Look at what is happening: The reason you’re in the drive-in line is you’re in a hurry. You don’t have time to park your car, go in, wait for a waiter to bring you a menu, look at the menu, wait for the waiter to come back, order your meal, wait for it, eat it, wait for the check, pay for it and leave.
No, you’re in a hurry, yet there you sit, waiting for someone to ask “May I take your order?” You have a sense of urgency. The person on the other end of the intercom? Not so much.

Just about everywhere you go these days there seems doesn’t seem to be a sense of urgency. Maybe the reason for that goes something like this: “I get paid for being here 8 hours, not for how much work I do.” Another one goes like this: “I’m busy. They can wait.”
To make matters worse the places where you find a lack of a sense of urgency part of the reason is that it’s communicated to employees by their managers. You ask to see the manager to complain and ten minutes later he or she appears. You, and by extrapolation, other customers, are not a priority, therefore no sense of urgency to respond.

Not at FedEx.

The first day I met the Director of Courier Operations at FedEx I noticed a sign on his desk: “If we don’t do our job today, we’ll be out of business tomorrow.” And he believed it. Fail to pick up and deliver packages on time, especially when your motto is “It’s there by 10:30 or it’s free” and you quite possibly could be out of business in a day.

It wasn’t the only place I saw that sign. It was everywhere.

There is no company I know of that is more clock conscious than FedEx, and there is just one clock: The digital clock in every building, in every office, on every wall, counting down in hours, minutes and seconds, the time left before aircraft must be in the air to deliver their packages on time the next day.

That clock does more than let everyone know how much time is left to do their job. It creates a sustained sense of urgency because without it FedEx could never achieve their goal: Deliver those packages by 10:30 AM tomorrow. No one at FedEx puts it off until tomorrow.

Does your order entry, receiving, put away, picking, ship staging and shipping pulse with a sense of urgency? Are orders routed and prioritized for efficient picking? Do order pickers move swiftly and surely through the warehouse as they pick inventory for shipment? Is your inventory mapped so the most frequently ordered items and most urgent items are closest to shipping? Do your employees and managers share a sense of urgency?

That sense of urgency at FedEx creates an environment for building teamwork: Everyone knows what they have to do and they know they can’t do it all themselves. The only way to succeed every day is to not just work together, but find better ways to work together.

If you want to gain a unique competitive advantage over your rivals, nothing beats a sense of urgency and making it part of your culture.

Next up: COMMITMENT TO QUALITY

WHAT FEDEX CAN TEACH INVENTORY MANAGERS

Though it seems like yesterday, it was really more than 20 years ago that Federal Express came into my life in a big way. I took on FedEx as a customer and kept them as a customer for over 17 years. Working side-by-side with their people taught me a lot, and I learned firsthand what made FedEx so successful. Guess what? Almost all of the things that make FedEx successful can be applied to any company in any market.

CUSTODIAL POSSESSION

Strange at it may seem, FedEx became successful not because they guaranteed package delivery by 10:30 AM the next day, but from the application of a single revolutionary concept throughout the entire organization. That concept is known as Custodial Possession. It can be described this way: Once we pick it up, it isn’t YOUR package; it becomes OUR package. That makes US responsible for keeping up with it until it is delivered. WE have to do whatever we can to make sure OUR package is delivered.

Custodial Possession didn’t stop with the couriers, sort hub employees, pilots or drivers. It could be found throughout the company. Everybody from customer service operators, dispatchers, computer operators, network managers, even engineers knew that they played a role in delivering OUR packages on time.

That was a radical departure from the philosophy and business practices of other delivery companies.

Why would a concept like Custodial Possession be relevant to a warehouse manager or a manufacturer? Because there is a subtle difference between how you treat what’s yours and how you treat what’s not.

Talk to anyone who rents things from cars to apartments to TV’s and they all tell you the same thing: Nobody dishes out abuse like someone who doesn't "own" the item.

And it’s true. Rental cars with dirty diapers piled deep in the back seat of a returned car. Coffee stains on rugs. Bathroom fixtures ripped from the wall. Picture tubes smashed. The reason? An underlying feeling that because it’s not “MINE” someone else is responsible.

If it’s not MY car, then YOU are responsible for keeping it clean. If it’s not MY package, then YOU are responsible for getting it delivered. If it’s not MY inventory, then YOU are responsible for how it’s received, put away, picked or shipped.

Fred Smith realized for millions of packages to be delivered by 10:30 AM the next business day, everyone at FedEx had to be convinced that every package picked up, loaded on a plane, ran through the sorting system, loaded on the outbound plane, put on a truck and delivered was “MY” package. Delivering MY package overrides everything else.

It works. That commitment to delivering MY package is best illustrated by a story.

During my time working with FedEX, I saw a package get bumped off the sort conveyer. It was found and brought to the sort manager. (BTW, at the end of every sort the entire hub and flight line is inspected from top to bottom and end to end to locate any packages that may have been bumped off.)

The sort manager at FedEx didn’t have to think about it. He bought a first class ticket on the next commercial flight out to the destination city, put an employee on the plane with the package who then hand delivered it to the recipient. And it was delivered before 10:30 AM.

So, what does Custodial Possession have to do with inventory? Well, think about what happens to all those packages. An order is given for delivery. The item is picked up and delivered to the warehouse where it is received, accounted for and sorted. Then another order has it picked for pre-ship preparation, then it's moved to shipping, put on a vehicle which then delivers the item to the customer. At each step of the way, FedEx knows exactly where it is, where it's been and where it's going.

Do your warehouse operators, procurement managers and customer service people treat inventory as though it were THEIRS? Is everyone committed to making sure that inventory is ordered in the right quantities and delivered before it’s needed to fill orders or to move into manufacturing? Is it received carefully and checked against outstanding orders to ensure quantities and part numbers are right? Is inventory staged in such a way that put away can be done quickly and items made available for customer orders or movement to manufacturing quickly?

Or does inventory get a “lick and a promise” as my grandmother used to say?

When it comes time to fill a customer order, do your systems and processes ensure that the right product in the right quantities are picked, then carefully packed for shipment? Does your inventory management process make sure that not only what is being shipped is being shipped the way the customer wants it and when the customer needs it?

If you want to gain an unfairl competitive advantage, don’t emulate your competition, think about Custodial Possession and use it to set the bar way up high and keep it there. FedEx did and look where they are today.

Next Up: A SENSE OF URGENCY