The greatest benefit of eStockCard is allowed you to track each inventory with their unique serial number.
After the item has been stored into your warehouse or storage location by IN operation, unique serial number will be automatically generated by the system and bar code label will be printed and pasted onto that item.
You can track it in an effective manner (item code + unique serial number) under all other operations such as OUT, LOCK, UNLOCK, CYCLE COUNT, PICKING & SALES ORDER.
During receiving, put away or retrieval processes, you are generally required to enter numeric or alphanumeric information such as item code to your inventory control software, spreadsheet, proprietary software or accounting software.
However, numerous human errors such as typo error and this will result wrong information or data to be entered if item codes have high degree of similarities. Significant and substantial amount of efforts are required to rectify it.
One of the unique feature that deliver by eStockCard is to display the item’s image before data is entered and confirmed. This will greatly improve the accuracy of put away or retrieval.
You must attached item’s image during the creation of item code. Image will be displayed during IN (Put away) or OUT (Retrieval)
Shelf life is the length of time that food, drink, drug, chemical, pharmaceuticals or medicine are given before they are considered unsuitable for sale or consumption. It is the recommendation of time that products can be stored, during which the defined quality of a specified proportion of the goods remains acceptable under expected (or specified) conditions of distribution, storage and display.
Stringent shelf life control is significant importance and crucial in many industries such as pharmaceutical, food, drink, chemical and meat distribution to ensure their products are keeping at best freshness and without degrading to unacceptable levels.
A viable shelf life control system within the organization must be able to accomplish the following aspects:-
1. Identifying and maintaining a database of all items that have “Shelf-Life Limitation”.
2. Able to capture all appropriate information, such as lot no, batch no, receiving information, expiration date, manufacturing data and many specific information.
3. What products in your inventory have a limited shelf life and quantities on hands.
4. Monitor those products with a scheduled frequency that will ensure that no product will remain in stock or be issued beyond its shelf life.
eStockCard has been designed and empowered with superior shelf life control capability that helps firms to achieve better control and managing product’s expiry. A typical workflows to be demonstrated as below :-
Step 1 Data capturing during put-away process
Step 2 You can view date-to-expiry, already-expired products during retrieval process.
In property investment, the most important factor is: location, location, and location.
In Warehouse Inventory Control, to me, the most important function is: accuracy, accuracy, and accuracy.
It is true that without accurate inventory information, you cannot plan your inventory properly such as:-
The question is, how am I going to keep an accurate inventory in my stores or warehouses? Here are some suggestions for your reference:-
How much does it cost to your organization if the productive machine is not working as promised? It could be very costly and expensive to the organization and deteriorate the level of customer satisfaction and may severely impact your organization bottom line.
Hence, effective spare parts inventory management plays a vital role in achieving good machine and asset availability at an optimum cost.
It has been common in many industries that the non-availability or inappropriate of spare parts, as and when required for repairs, contributes to as much as 50% of the total down time cost. It is a paradox to note that the maintenance department is complaining of lacking of appropriate, right quantity of the spare parts to meet their maintenance requirement and finance department is facing the problem of increasing locked up capital in spare parts inventory due to over stocking or spare parts obsolescence. This further signifies the vital importance of spare parts inventory management in many organizations.
The typical problems and major challenges faced by the organization in managing their spare parts are as follows:-
Firstly, there is an element of uncertainty as to when, what and quantity a part is required. This is due to the fact that the failure of a component can not be predicted accurately.
Secondly, spare parts are not easily and widely available in the market as they are not fast moving or commodity items. Additionally, due to technology advancement, new spare parts are introduced to incorporate the design improvements and old spare parts are phased out. Obsolescence is the common problem due to old spare parts is not fitted.
Thirdly, the number and variety of spare parts are too large making the close control more and more tedious and difficult without the installing of good and proper inventory tracking system.
Fourthly, no proper spare parts inventory analysis tool in place to carry out analyze on different characteristics of the spare parts, such as annual consumption value, criticality, lead time, unit cost and the frequency of use; It is crucial to help the company in establishing suitable control policies.
The objective of spare parts inventory management is to ensure the availability of spares for maintenance and repairs of the plant and machinery as and when required at an optimum cost.
Chronos eStockcard, a good inventory control system helps to streamline spare part inventory control processes by deliver and render the following capabilities:-
Prior to develop viable and effective inventory control policy and procedure, it is essential to analyze the inventories based on various characteristics such as the frequency of issues and use, the annual consumption value, the unit price, the scarcity and lead time. This is essential as it would not be possible to exercise the same type of control for all items and it may not really be effective. Inventory analysis and adequate classification aids selection of proper policies to achieve better in control.
Commonly used inventory analyses are:
(1) FSN Analysis
(2) ABC Analysis
(3) HML Analysis
(4) SDE Analysis
FSN Analysis:
Classification based on frequency of issues and uses
F, S & N stand for Fast moving, Slow moving and Non moving items.
Fast Moving (F) = Items that are frequently issued/used
Slow Moving (S) = Items that are issued/used less for certain period of time
Non-Moving (N) = Items that are not issued/used for more than certain duration
This type of classification helps to establish and organize proper warehouse layout by locating all the fast moving items near the dispensing window to reduce the handling efforts. Also, attention of the management is focused on the Non-Moving items to enable decision as to whether they are in needs in the future or they can be salvaged or disposed. This will help to improve organization’s capital utilization and cash flow.
ABC Analysis:
Classification based on Consumption:
Another method of classifying inventory is on the basis of annual consumption value. Pareto’s principle can be applied to classify inventories based on consumption value.
Pareto principle : The significant items in a given group normally constitute a small portion of the total items in a group and the majority of the items in the total will, in aggregate, be of minor significance.
This way of classification is known as ABC classification.
CLASS A: 10% of total inventories contributing towards 70% of total consumption value.
CLASS B: 20% of total inventories which account for about 20% of total consumption value.
CLASS C: 70% of total inventories which account for only 10% of total consumption value.
Policy for ‘A’ items
* Maximum control
* Value Analysis
* More than one supplier
* Control by top executives.
Policy for ‘B’ items
* Minimum control
* Bulk Orders
* More items from same supplier.
HML Analysis:
Classification based on unit price:
This classification is as follows:
High Cost (H) = Item whose unit value is very high
Medium Cost (M) = Item whose unit value is of medium value
Low Cost (L) = Item whose unit value is low
This type of classification helps in implementing proper control such as authorization, expiry management; identify opportunity to find out a less expensive substitute.
SDE Analysis:
Classification based on the Scarcity and lead time:
Scarce (S) = Items which are imported and require longer lead time
Difficult (D) = Items which require more than a fortnight but less than 6 months’ lead time.
Easily available (E) = Items which are easily available
This type of classification helps in reducing the lead time required at least in case of vital and essential items. Ultimately, this will reduce stock-out costs in case of stock-outs.
Inventory tracking is the fundamental process within the firm. Good and efficient inventory tracking system provides the firm with quality and timeliness data which ultimately improve operational efficiency and bottom line.
eStockCard is developed with very simple objective – We wish to provide the best tracking capability to firms in managing their products, parts or items within their warehouse or storage location.
1. Inbound/Receiving/Put away
2. Picking/Delivery
3. Inventory Status
A simple inventory tracking software, with serialization capability from Chronos eStockCard, enables small and mid-sized companies to manage and track their products beyond their four walls.
The major benefit that can be reaped from product serialization are :-
eStockCard, barcode-enabled inventory tracking software, has promised to deliver
1. Simple but powerful tracking capability
Technology-advanced solutions such as RFID can be very costly and not viable for many companies. Paper and pen recording can be ineffective and inaccurate.
By switching to eStockCard, you just need a piece of barcode label and unique serialized number will be generated for tracking purpose from receiving until delivery.
2. Better shelf-life control
For limited shelf-life products or items, the unique identifier that generated by eStockCard can be used to determine the end-of-life (EOL) of the products and this will help to facilitate the put-away and distribution processes.
3. Alert
Automatic alert triggering system is embedded to help firms to identify and segregate the about-to-expire products.
4. History
Many powerful reporting are built and allow firms to trace product’s history and movement.
At Chronos, we believe this superior inventory tracking software will help you to achieve better control. You can download the Free Edition immediately for trial.
Effective sample management is critical and important for many industries, for instances, food and beverages, chemical and pharmaceutical industries, just name a few.
Samples are used and referred during receiving and inspection, production and quality control management. Hence, proper and effective sample management system and procedures must be established within the organization to keep track of the flows, quantity, expiration of the physical samples.
Several common issues and challenges when managing samples:-
eStockCard, being one of the most powerful inventory tracking software, has been deployed successfully in several chemical coating companies with the prime objective of achieving excellent sample management.
The simple and easy-to-use IN and OUT screens will help to record the movement and flow of the samples. You can enter auxiliary information such as batch or lot numbers, EOL (end of life) and many more for further analysis.
Simple but powerful and resourceful reporting function will provide user with greater visibility of its validity, quantity, movement, history, where to store and more.
Intelligent alerting module will trigger and alert user automatically for any about-to-expire sample. This is essential for good quality management.
Comprehensive barcode design and printing feature is embedded to help to simplify data entry and reduce human error.
Customizable screen layout capability is another value-added feature which allows user from diverse industries to customize their screen layout and further improve their operational efficiencies.
What costs do you need to consider when implement inventory management system or software?
It can cost from almost free to several millions of dollars.
1. Short term investments to consider:
Hardware – Server/Client computer/Printer/Barcode scanner/RFID/Handhelds
Operating system/Database/Server licenses
Application software licenses
Consulting services such as system integration/staff trainings/customization
2. Long term investments to consider:
Annual software licensing fees
Upgrade costs
Potential customization needs
Ongoing support/New staffs training
However, the biggest HIDDEN costs are the people in the organization RESIST TO CHANGE.