Just imagine!
A businessman is trying to run his business without knowing how much the stock in the inventory is, or the workers do not know the where-about of the product, when there is a sale or an urgent requirement from any client. Or even worse, the products are being stolen by someone and there isn’t any record of it.What do you think will be the results in the long term? Losing the customers to a competitor? Ruining the relationship with clients? Incurring huge monetary losses? Or maybe all of these!Well, all these inherent issues can be resolved by businesses if they embrace an inventory management system.
Significance of such a system is monumentalas it helps the businesses to track the inventory levels, track sales, orders, and distributions smartly thereby reducing the business losses. IoT is one of the key technology being used widely in such systems like IoT in scanning the inventory using RFID, IoT in Transportation and Logistics, etc. So, in this blog, to get a fair idea, we have outlined the advantages and key features of a technology-smart inventory management system.
Why the Need for an Inventory Management System?
- High transparency and visibility of product levels
- Preventing stock-outs and overstocks
- Minimization of capital investment
- Enhancement in business operations and workflows
- Accurate inventory tracking
- Getting rid of paper-based and spreadsheet tracking
- Appropriate planning of inventory balance
- Better warehouse management and utilization of warehouse space
- Time-saving due to automatic inventory and order management
- Cost-cutting by reducing manual labor intervention
- Increased efficiency of payment/billing details
- Improved relationships with vendors and clients
- Improved employee efficiency
- Enhanced inventory turnover and thus, better revenues
Top-notch Features of a Smart Inventory Management System!
- Real-time
Visibility of Inventory: A smart system must
ensure that all the items in the inventory are under real-time visibility.
Every item entering or leaving the warehouse must be tracked and this data
should be stored digitally.
- Monitoring levels
of Inventory: An effective system must allow proper management of orders, raise alarms
when inventory drops below a threshold limit or exceeds it. This feature allows
decision-makers to take necessary actions like ordering fresh inventory, avoiding
excessive stocking, etc.
- Barcode Scanning: A barcode is a machine-readable code used for stock management and
control. Barcode scanning is a must-have feature for easy identification of
products, labeling, and sorting into categories.
- RFID-based Tracking: RFID-based inventory tracking and control allows real-time and automated
tracking of the inventory. Hundreds of tags can be read simultaneously making
the process much faster and cost-effective. RFID technology is also capable of
sending alarms and alerts in case of emergencies.
- Advanced Reporting: An inventory system should provide accurate insights on factors like stock
management, sales, purchase, suppliers, customers, payments, etc. Reports of
transactions, inventory totals, order details, etc. are mandatory for ensuring
efficient workflows, and for augmenting efficacy. This feature helps to monitor
the progress in the sales and understand which product is in high demand and
which isn’t.
- Tracking
Transaction History: This is an absolutely essential feature. All
the inventory-related details right from the receipt to shipment of the
inventory must be tracked and stored. Details like the number of products, receipt
dates, expiration dates, shipping dates, etc. must be saved and should be
easily accessible by the concerned personnel whenever required.
- Management of
Multiple Warehouses: A single system should allow the management of multiple warehouses that
may be located at different locations. This feature is especially relevant to
companies that operate across multiple locations.
- Grouping of Inventory: Grouping of
the material according to its specification, size, components, etc. into
predefined categories is another important feature. It enhances the inventory organization.
- Easily Configurable: A good inventory
system should be able to be configurable with different business entities
easily and be successfully employed without much customization.
- Easy Integrations
with External Systems: System should be able
to integrate with third-party ERP systems or a Warehouse Management System or Shipping
companies with ease. A company may also want to integrate other systems for
data analytics, corporate accounting, planning, etc. in the inventory
management system which should be easily possible.
- Forecasting Demand: This feature allows extracting the past data to identify the demand in
the future; which in turn helps to make pro-active business decisions, build
good relationships with customers, and boosts sales.
- Security Features and Backups: It isn’t a good idea to
invest in an inventory system without knowing about its security measures. To
ensure high data security, there should be security features that allow only
authorized people or give partial rights to access the data. This would prevent
the system from any data misuse or data leakages. Also, there should be daily
backups available. So, in case you lose the data to a third-party hack, or any
other threat, you will be able to start the operations again without much
trouble.
- Receiving alerts: This feature allows the alerts and notifications about the receiving,
picking, shipping, of the inventory, or when inventory is running low or there
is overstocking of inventory.
- PDF Printing: The inventory management system must be able to create or print PDF
documents related to invoices, packing slips, shipping labels, quality control
documents, etc. and such related documents.
- Import/Export of Data: This is another advantageous feature of this system. It should be able to
import data with ease to reduce data entry work and streamline mass changes. The
System should be able to export data like shipment lists, inventory item lists,
master data of vendors, customers, etc.
Final Words:
When a business relies on
traditional ways of inventory management, there are chances that data could be
inconsistent or inaccurate. These ways are prone to human errors which could
cause huge monetary losses at times and adversely affect business growth. Also,
there could be security issues in them. Asmart inventory management system
embedded with the above features has ample advantages over traditional systems.
It has impacted several businesses across the globe.
I hope this blog was helpful. Please feel free to comment
below to let us know your thoughts on this.
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