The Not-So-Secret Key to Success with Inventory Control Programs for Manufacturing

July 10th 2018 15:00:00 PM

Running a small to mid-sized manufacturing company? Those naysayers can say what they will, but manufacturing is still one of the staples of the American economy; your job is critical to our success as a nation.

However, for you to succeed in your job, your business needs to excel. With the ever-increasing pace of global competition, that means you need to be more efficient and productive than ever before. One of the best ways for you to stay efficient is to use an inventory control program.

These programs don’t have to be large or complex, yet they stand to make a huge impact on your overall productivity. If you’re curious about better, digitally-based inventory control systems, you may want to start with an affordable, easy-to-use, real-time, digitized counting system.

Skip reading the blog and get to your next stage immediately. Contact the inventory control experts at Scanco and learn how easy it is to implement effective counting tools into your Sage 100 system today. Want faster help? Call us up at (330) 645-9959.

Inventory Management Is Complicated for Manufacturers

Today’s manufacturing landscape offers a lot of options. Whether you run a manufacturing / distribution operation or an eCommerce-driven MTO shop, whether you kit or you batch, or whether you do something else entirely, you probably run into problems with inventory control.

• JIT operations require reliable supply chains with carefully-timed procurement practices
• MTS shops have to constantly juggle shelf space, so they can affordably stock both raw materials and FGs
• Customer-facing eCommerce plants must accurately report on-hand inventory at all times—or risk losing customers

In fact, you may even run all three of these business models at once if you have JIT procurement, MTS manufacturing, and eCommerce-driven sales!

Each of these models comes with its own challenges and opportunities, yet all three of them share a common thread: they all require very careful, extremely accurate inventory counts, at all times. The problem is, in a busy factory filled with new workers (like most are right now), ensuring inventory accuracy with hand-counting can be nearly impossible.

Why Inventory Is Harder for Manufacturers Than for Other Businesses

Most of today’s manufacturers run small shops and rely on paper-based inventory management methods for all their inventory tracking. They (and probably you, as well) run year-end counts, as well as intermittent cycle counts, adjusting the numbers as needed according to the latest results.

This method was fine back in the day, but you’ve probably noticed already that the modern pace of business has more items coming into and leaving your location than ever before. This is great for business revenues … but tough for administration management.

Increasing the admin burden, there are now longer supply chains than ever (which means you’re probably relying on more vendors), plus D2C and e-fulfillment sales are up (which means you’re selling and shipping to more places and people).

All in all, these changes mean your receiving procedures are likely to be infinitely more complex than they used to be and your shipping procedures can vary wildly from day to day.

With these new complications and complexities in your operations, you can trust that relying on those old, time-honored methods for inventory counting is guaranteed to leave your counts out-of-date and, if you have multiple locations or you’re using a 3PL / on-demand warehouse, you’ll soon find that these outdated counts are costing you business.

Inventory Control Programs and Applications Make Inventory Control Easier

We’re not trying to say that your outlook as a manufacturer is all gloom-and-doom. In fact, we’re saying just the opposite because, thanks to cloud-based inventory control programs, inventory counting and tracking in real-time is now easier than ever to implement and use.

In fact, with Sage Mobility, built specifically for Sage 100, you can have a fully functioning, seamlessly integrated inventory control program within just a few hours.

Depending on your Sage 100 version, you may already have the tools you need, right in the palm of your hand. 

Find out if your Sage system comes with the tools you need, already built in, when you contact Scanco online or at (330) 645-9959.