Five Essential Manufacturing Inventory Management Techniques
Manufacturing inventory control is critical as you manage raw materials and supplies, works-in-progress and finished products. As you’re managing manufacturing inventory, you must ensure you’re fully meeting demand, maintaining adequate supplies for production and tracking finished output as it goes out to consumers. With all these factors to consider, you need an effective strategy to facilitate seamless management.
The right manufacturing inventory management techniques can help your business save on operational costs and labor. Keep in mind some best practices to help you manage your requirements.
Manufacturing Inventory Management Best Practices
Implementing five essential inventory management techniques for manufacturing can help you optimize your processes.
1. Track Supply and Demand
Monitoring your business’s supply and demand in real time can help you stay ahead of new orders. Ensure you have up-to-date and accurate reports on your stock, work-in-progress and finished products. Checking your product locations and continuously tracking your inventory can help you seamlessly manage fulfillment and identify the source of delays to streamline your overall workflow.
2. Use a Warehouse Management Software
One way you can more effectively track your inventory supply is with technological solutions tailored to your industry. Many software options are available to work specifically with your manufacturing inventory requirements. These intuitive systems allow you to view your inventory levels at any time, tracking stock items, raw materials, finished products and more. With the right technologies, you can ensure that your business always has the inventory on hand to respond to orders placed.
3. Keep Buffer Stock for High Demand
In every manufacturing facility, demand for a specific product may suddenly increase. To proactively prepare for high demand, keep buffer stock of items crucial for your operations. When you always have extra stock available, you’ll be able to respond promptly to an influx of orders and buy yourself time to replace your stock.
4. Optimize Your Warehouse Layout
Strategically organizing your warehouse layout can streamline workflow, help employees find required items efficiently and boost overall productivity. Your facility should leave ample space open for workers to navigate equipment through the warehouse. One best practice is to stock from the back and pull items from the front to ensure older products are used first. Clearly labeling shelves and products can help make item picking faster and more accurate, as well.
5. Maintain Regular Audits
Consistent auditing of your process is a powerful tool to help you efficiently track your inventory. Conduct yearly physical inventory checks, counting all the items in the facility. You can also do spot-checking to ensure a specific stock count fits your plan. Cycle counting, or checking subsets of inventory on specific days, is another option to monitor inventory regularly.
Maximize Uptime With Global Electronic Services
When you use best practices for inventory management, you can boost efficiency and more effectively track your inventory at all stages of production. If you need servicing to further increase your operation’s uptime, you can partner with Global Electronic Services for industrial electronic repair. Get in touch with us for a quote to keep your operations running seamlessly.
