Managing Supply Chain Inventory: Pitfalls and Opportunities
Do you consider distribution and inventory costs when you design products? Can you keep your customers informed of when their orders will arrive? Do you know what kind of inventory-control systems your dealers use? If not, you've succumbed to the pitfalls of inventory management. You're not alone. Manufacturers have been concentrating on quality of incoming materials and outgoing products, but they haven't been paying as much attention to the costs associated with transporting and storing them. Lee and Billington describe fourteen pitfalls of supply-chain management and some corresponding opportunities. The more complex your network of suppliers, manufacturers and distributors, the more likely you can gain operational efficiencies by attending to inventory.