Ramlee Ibrahim & Associates

What do you do with slow movers? You can identify and focus on a few inventory items – the A items. But another side must be considered: what to do with the slow movers? Read on and I will help identify different strategies to effectively deal with slow movers by first identifying the problems slow movers create.

The slow movers are those items or SKUs for which sporadic or very little demand exists. Typically, these items fall into the “C” category of the ABC analysis and constitute about 50 percent of the part numbers but only about 5 percent of the total value (where total value is based on total revenue and demand usage).

But a single C-class item, while generating less demand per unit, consumes about the same amount of overhead resources used to store the item (physical space, stockeeping personnel, obsolesence costs, and the time and effort to enter the data and to maintain it in the computer system) and to maintain the demand for the products that use these items. These resources are also used to maintain the demand and the products that use these items. Fir the first, the demand, there is marketing and the need for a marketing/sales person to call people and to forecast demand. For the second, the products that use these items, consider the time and effort needed for an engineer to design, revise, and maintain the demands. At some point, you have to consider that the costs for many C-class items often exceed the benefits. (more…)

Article after article is written about improving warehouses. There are robots, carousels, retrieval systems, theories of layout, and computer models to simulate flow. Then textbooks and consultants tell you warehouses are obsolete. Instead, build to order and ship directly to the customer. As always, there are two attractive, totally opposite theories, as the following examples illustrate. (more…)