Thursday, June 20, 2019

Steps For Supply Chain Planning

By Betty Richardson


Different size companies have employees in various positions in order to make sure everything gets done to keep the business running. Throughout these positions are many that relate to supply chain planning. This is an important function and any business that sells a product needs to have the people in place to make it happen effectively. Without them in place, there can be disastrous consequences that cause product delivery delays, increase needs for customer service, and can cost the company money.

A very critical position in the company is the purchasing manager. This person is in charge of making sure everything from raw materials to pens are purchased at the best prices without degrading the value of the product. They will make sure everything that needs to be bought is and is tracked appropriately in order to stave off financial ruin.

The factory needs raw materials or parts to build the products. If the factory runs out, the process stops quickly. Employees will be standing around getting paid or laid off. In both cases, you will experience costly lost wages. Over time, those employees may go elsewhere and you'll have the expense of training new ones.

Inventory management is also critical. This position keeps track of what is in stock to be used or sold. Most companies perform a monthly or weekly inventory to keep track. Some may need to do a daily inventory. Having a tracking system in place will help reduce the effort needed, but a manual count should still be done at least monthly in case the system loses track or material goes missing.

A well-maintained warehouse will keep things running smoothly. Losing time hunting down what you need is wasted money. It is important to be able to find what is needed quickly and get it to the people that need to use it. Managing one or more warehouses requires the right kind of software and knowledge to work well.

Transporting the products is how it gets to the customer. This seems like a basic idea, but if you have a customer calling to find out where their purchase is, this function will suddenly become extremely important. It is not just a position for those companies with their own trucks, but for any company that ships product in any way.

Customer service provides the customers with information and uses the systems in place to do this. The tracking and ordering systems need to be accessible to the customer representatives so they can quickly provide status updates to customers and work to resolve problems.

Planning how much you need is important to prevent overstocking and running out. Having too much product is just as costly as having too little. If you have product taking up warehouse space because there is too much, it will cost you money to store it. Having too little will cost you sales and your reputation. The demand planning position will need to analyze trends to make sure just enough is on hand at any moment.

Customers expect to get their purchases in a timely manner. Running out of product after the sale is not acceptable and can cause a chain reaction of bad reputation reports that end up costing new customers and money in the short and long term. Making sure that every step is covered is part of owning and running a business.




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