Inventory tracking is critical in every manufacturing and warehouse facility. By incorporating computerized maintenance management systems, you can improve operations, control inventory costs and track assets efficiently. First, let us see why you must implement CMMS.
Challenges with Manual Inventory Tracking
Inventory tracking has been a manual task for quite a long time and it comes with several challenges. CMMS helps in overcoming those challenges, some of which include:
- Difficulty in Locating and Tracking Parts
Manual inventory tracking relies heavily on memory. You have to remember where different parts are located across the warehouse, which can be challenging if you need some part urgently. Improper inventory tracking may lead to unnecessary re-ordering, over-stocking of parts and stocking of unrequited, obsolete parts — all of which can get difficult to manage. Furthermore, inventory carrying costs and equipment downtime will increase and you will lose productivity if you cannot locate parts when needed.
- Difficulty in Tracking Quantities
Imagine the chaos if you had to track all quantities of inventory, such as on-hand inventory, on-order, committed, receipts of order and issues, if you have to do it all manually. It will lead to numerous discrepancies too. Apart from quantities, it would be difficult to track re-order points as well, which can be addressed by EAM.
- Challenge of Tracking Multiple Vendors
Keeping a track of all your vendors and the parts they supply can get extremely tedious if done manually. You need the ability to track the vendor offering you the lowest price and lead time. Without that information you can end up purchasing parts for more price and long lead times, especially if the parts have to be ordered with short lead times and high shipping costs.
- Inability to Predict Future Needs Accurately
CMMS maintenance software helps in tracking parts you would need in the future. This would not be easy with manual tracking if you factor in order lead times for future planned maintenance jobs.
- Tough to Perform Physical Counts
Performing physical counts of parts is quite labor intensive, especially when you have to perform partial counts for high value or frequently used parts only.
Apart from that, even analysis and reporting in manual inventory tracking is quite labor intensive and all the above mentioned factors eventually lead to increased costs.
How CMMS Software Helps in Controlling Inventory Costs
CMMS can control inventory costs by:
- Optimizing Tracking
There will be numerous assets and parts within your facility and finding the right ones on the right shelves will take time. You will waste time and money searching for lost or misplaced parts. Asset management software helps in identifying the storage locations of all the parts within your facility and ensuring that you can find parts easily without wasting too many resources.
- Monitoring Stock Levels
Monitoring the stock levels of your assets is absolutely critical. CMMS helps in controlling your stock based on availability and need. You can also track slow-moving parts within the facility. All this will help in controlling expenses on underused or unused materials. Moreover, you can control costs by avoiding under-stocking and over-stocking.
- Reordering Efficiently
If you want to ensure that there are right parts in the facility and minimize the quantity of underused parts, you have to streamline reordering. By doing so, you can determine the current inventory levels and automatically generate purchase orders based on need, thus reducing purchasing overhead.
It is also possible to set reorder points and calculate the average daily usage by the part’s lead time in days. This will help in making sure that you constantly reorder the parts that are critical and in high-demand and avoid ordering the ones that you don’t need often.
- Better Inventory Management
Mobile CMMS helps in automating cyclical inventory counts, which helps in reducing the overall man hours that are needed and ensuring that the required parts are available on the shelf. When you monitor your inventory turn levels, you can be assured that you have the correct parts at your disposal. Managing inventory manually can be time consuming and expensive. When you combine your inventory process along with CMMS, you can identify obsolete equipment and track inventory loss or shrinkage.
Preventive maintenance software can do wonders for inventory management within your facility. So, don’t think twice about implementing it.
Author Bio: Lindsey Walker works for NEXGEN Asset Management as their Marketing Manager. With a B.S in Business Information Management, she excels at business development, project management as well as asset management. Her passion for writing allows her to find time from her busy work schedule to share her knowledge on asset management, geographic information systems (GIS), software implementation, training curriculum development, and similar topics. When she isn’t working or writing, she loves to work out, do puzzles and listen to instrumental music.
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