Has your organization ever been in a situation where inventory is being tracked and later you find out that it was not properly recorded and now all of the information that you thought was available is no longer there for your usage? What a disappointment. Kind of makes you want to move away from the old routine of sharpening your pencils and heading into the inventory area for an entire day of counting. Then another 8 hours the next day of typing all of that information into the spreadsheet you have come to disgust.

I’m sure this really isn’t the way inventory is tracked in today’s fast pasted environment but I’d like to guess there are a few companies that are still lacking the technology that may cost them a few pennies in the beginning but save them a few hundred pennies in the long run. I’m referring to an inventory software solution. There are many options available right now and they are not limited to only the solutions which require your organization to have a system built specifically for you or a canned system both of which do not offer much flexibility.

Inventory systems can be browser based which allows for real time data access to the system implemented. This means that organizations are no longer guessing at where their inventory levels are at and also where specific products are located within their warehouses. Imagine… a truck delivers a shipment to your facility and the inventory is entered into the system as soon as it is moved out of the truck. There is no need to write everything on a spreadsheet and pass this sheet around to various departments within the organization. The information is updated immediately which means anyone interested in the products can view their existence at anytime from any browser (even smartphones and PDAs) anywhere in the world. This technology also allows for organizations to locate specific products and their placement in storage effortlessly without shuffling through multiple maps trying finding a general area where the product is located. Imagine that, no more playing find the needle in a haystack.

I don’t know if I’ve convinced you enough about switching to a software inventory system so why don’t you take a quick look at this great new blog that will hopefully help to sway your opinion also.

Cambridge Manufacturing Journals


Manufacturing.gov