Garbage In Garbage Out
Are we putting too much focus on building new processes without understanding the importance of having reliable inputs to our processes ?
A lot of management attention goes in deciding how to get the right product at the right place at the right time. But if we have low confidence on the current inventory on hand in our system Vs what is in physical stock, we might be overlooking the important-urgent.
Inventory counting errors, selling errors, and receiving errors are usually identified as the top three obstacles to maintain inventory integrity.
The most effective means of improving data integrity is by addressing the human-error factor through employee training and educating staff about how their actions impact the accuracy of stock on-hand files.
In addition to targeting human-error levels, bar code scanning systems have been identified as an effective way of eliminating data integrity problems and establishing specific accuracy measurements.
While human error and counting errors will always exist, retailers can improve performance by ensuring that their inventory processes are optimized, at least until the inventory arrives at the stores. There are many basic inventory management processes, such as the receiving process, that can be automated and streamlined to enhance efficiency.
Also, complexity is glamorous but efforts to simplify our current processes will reap rich dividends.