Stock management is a key optimization factor for increasing your return on investment.
All products and materials purchased and stored are valuable in their own right: but when your stock is mismanaged, that investment can be considered as wasted.
The more efficient your stock management, the more you increase your ability to meet demand while avoiding losses. What’s the quickest way to improve stock management? In this article, we look at some reliable and effective methods to improvement management of your stock.
Good stock management has to be one of your priorities. Optimized stock management brings many benefits for your whole supply chain. Here's what you need to know about stock logistics and the benefits of managing it effectively.
You are legally required to conduct an inventory of all the products you hold in stock at least once a year. This is what we call the logistics inventory. Such an inventory allows you to precisely gauge the difference between the SKUs entered in your computer system and those actually present in your warehouse.
This inventory must be comprehensive, and can cover different types of items:
There are several ways to inventorize your stock, such as:
Efficient stock management brings you many benefits:
With good stock management, you can make informed decisions
You know exactly what you have in stock, so you have full visibility of the goods in your possession, goods you need to order more, and goods you need to order less.
This allows you to better manage your storage cycles, and you can easily decide which products are first to be taken from stock.
As we have seen, stock management is critical to the success of your business. Here are 4 tips to optimize stock management and maximize the resulting benefits.
To optimize management of your stock, you have to implement effective stock management processes. You need to know at every moment what goods are stored, where, how and for how long, but also the quantities needed to satisfy demand over a given period.
There are several methods of controlling your stock, both manually or via computer:
Note that excellence in stock management is not only an asset for an optimized logistics inventory: it also has a direct impact on costs, productivity and customer satisfaction. Stock management is therefore a field in its own right, and one that needs your attention.
In a warehouse, organization is crucial to the optimal functioning of the supply chain. Good organization requires stocks to be labelled and named.
Good labelling allows you to track goods closely as they move along the supply chain, so you know exactly what you have in stock at any moment. There are other advantages to labelling, too:
Using a labelling technology lets you know exactly where your goods are. You can choose between two different technologies:
Also, it’s a good idea to name your stock precisely - that way you know exactly where it’s located geographically in your warehouse.
Investing in stock management software is a good idea. It saves you time and gives you a full view of your inventory status in real time.
However, as we saw above, this method only counts “visible” movements of goods. There may therefore be a disparity between the information recorded in the system and your real stock levels. This may be due to theft, or simply to mislabelled products.
Therefore, it’s advisable not to rely solely on the software and to carry out a physical inventory at regular intervals, to correct any errors in your continuous inventory count.
Process automation is an effective way to manage your stock while saving time and reducing errors.
Automation can also be extended to other elements of your supply chain, such as order picking.
The benefits of automated storage and order picking are numerous:
Automation is clearly the way ahead for optimized warehousing, as it improves stock management and makes inventories easier to conduct.
Stock management has a direct impact on a company’s productivity and sales. Well managed stock brings all kinds of benefits. But poorly managed stock can threaten the very survival of your business.
That’s why it's important to manage your stock as well as possible. By following our advice and applying the methods proposed, you can quickly improve stock management in your warehouse.