Improving the inventory process
Abstract
MMAS manufactures and distributes high-accuracy metering products to the North American utility, sub-metering and industrial markets. The company recently revamped its procurement processes, switching from offshore to domestic parts suppliers for some components to provide more flexibility in its supply chain. Workers at its 100,000 sq ft manufacturing and distribution facility were bogged down with a paper based, manual inventory management process. All inventory moves were written down and key entered into MAPICS on stationary desktop PCs, a time-consuming process that made it difficult to manage the company’s inventory of parts and finished products. Annual physical inventories took two days to complete with a large staff. Cycle counting was nearly impossible because of the manual data entry process. In order to make any adds or moves, staff had to go back to a PC for the data entry. The company is looking for an automated solution which enabled personal to have remote connectivity.
Improving the inventory process
The objectives are to find a system that will automate the inventory process. Eliminate the need for excessive time spent by multiple personal manually imputing the data. Generate instant inventory numbers upon demand. Based on the inventory numbers that this new system will provide, the system will be able to forecast needed inventory, control overstocked inventory and track what is not moving at all. Once the system is completely implemented current IS Staff will be trained to be able to maintain the software for the day to day operations.
Currently all inventory that has been moved back to the ...