Opinion

  • CFOs Go Beyond Inventory Management
    February 12, 2010

    A CFO’s measure for success is a profitable bottom line and generous return on invested capital. But in today’s economic times, those measures are hard to meet. Companies that use inventory management systems to control stock from production through customer delivery gain transaction visibility and greater process control, but still can't achieve their bottom line goals as fast as necessary.

  • ERP Systems Deserve More Than Rules of Thumb
    September 17, 2009

    ERP and APS systems are operational systems and are not designed to optimize the inventory targets that they manage. In effect, ERP systems can only put the right products at the right locations at the right time if supply and demand conditions never change.

    In realty, of course, almost everything in the supply chain environment changes all the time. Inventory planners know this. Most planners "optimize” inventory using rules of thumb (for example: “demand has risen by 10%, but sales always drop after the holidays, so let’s reduce inventory by 5% or 6%”).

  • Great Report: Think Outside Your ERP
    September 17, 2009

    Booz Allen recently developed a report called, “Think Outside Your ERP: Mission-Focused Inventory Strategies,” that discusses how many ERP systems are geared for high-volume consumer inventories, but don’t work well with inventories that are seasonal, fluctuating, and variable.

  • What to Look for When You're Looking for IO
    September 17, 2009

    ERP users evaluating an inventory optimization solution to augment their ERP system should keep these selection criteria in mind:

    • Seamless integration with your ERP system. Inventory target planning should fully integrate (via standard connections) with supply chain execution systems such as SAP, Oracle, i2, and Manugistics. Look for an “ERP-independent” solution that can drive a seamless flow of real-time information up and down the supply chain.