Warehouse management system in supply chain networks

A warehouse management system (WMS) is one of the key technologies required to create a successful adaptive supply chain networks. In an adaptive supply chain networks, the extended warehouse can respond to a variety of business requirements.

And on the other way,a successfully deployed WMS can turn inventory into a strategic, competitive advantage.You can create a perpetual or continuous inventory in order to keep book inventory continuously in agreement with stock on hand within specified time periods. And you can accomplish reconciliation between book inventory and stock on hand as often as after each transaction.

Cycle counting based on SKU velocity is one method of creating a perpetual inventory. Because you are conducting a daily, or even more frequent, counting, the annual physical inventory becomes a historical reference. Before implementing a perpetual inventory process, have corporate auditors approve the processes involved.

Although it is not mandatory, the best opportunity for converting to a perpetual inventory usually occurs when you are converting or upgrading to a new WMS. During the conversion process, you take a physical inventory not only to compare the actual stock on hand with the system of record and book the variance but also to create a baseline. You compare the baseline with the daily counts. Once the auditors are satisfied that the daily counts are accurate, there is no longer a need for annual physicals because the perpetual counts are correct.

This approach to inventory control provides the following benefits: Increased inventory accuracy ;Reduced labor costs by not conducting annual physical counts, which can add up to hundreds of full-time equivalents per facility and often encroach into overtime costs ;Decreased capital investments in products, with fewer dayson- hand inventory

Yao Zhou

The World is Flat

The other day on my Marketing class we discussed the book the World is Flat. My teacher made us see a video about the author talking to a group of university students. I wanted to share the information of the video with you. The author explains how the world has becoming flat. He first talks about the eras:

First Era (1490-1800) the world went from a size large to a size medium. Individuals start getting global through their countries
Second Era (1800-200)the world went from size M to S. Companies started globalizing. Individuals went global through their companies.
Third Era (2000-Future) the world went from size S to XS. Individuals started globalizing. Every individual gets more competitive.

After explaining the process, he talks about some events and calls them flatteners:
-11/9-->Berlin wall came down
-8/9/95-->Development of Netscape. Communication around the world becomes easier.
-Fiber optic cable improves the work flow
-Virtual work--> People connect with other people like never before
-Outsourcing
-Off shoring  in order to reduce costs, companies started taking the whole factory to other countries.
-Open sourcing  people working at home
-Global Supply Chain  Integrated SC and cross functional areas
-Informing  getting information in a easy way (Google)

These flatteners have made thing easier but at the same time difficult. There is more competition, the supply chain has become more complex and difficult to manage and there are more challenges. As the author says, there is no such thing as the American job any more. About this last statement, I watched the movie Outsourcing and it shows how some jobs have been outsourced to other countries. Nowadays, as professionals there is more competition, we are not competing anymore with our classmates but with everyone in the whole world. Every day is important to know more languages, have better skills and be more analytical in order to solve the new problems that this flat world brings.

Andrea Luque

Inventory in the Forest??

This post is not necessarily related to what we’ve been covering in class, but it is a very interesting application of inventory management. Scientists are going to St. Lucia in January to take inventory of the forests there. They are going to take stock of all the trees animals and birds and assess the health of the trees in a forest reserve. This sounds like a perfect job for someone with a graduate degree in operations management. You could spend the winter in the Caribbean counting trees. I’m really not sure what they are going to do with the inventory numbers once they finish their count. Maybe the forest is overgrown and they need to cut some of the trees down to save on inventory holding costs.

Whit Brown