"The truly visionary companies are leveraging their inventory as a competitive weapon and using it to hedge the demand.

Source: AberdeenGroup, September 2006

               For most companies, carrying inventory is a fact of life.  But do you know just how much this "fact of life" is costing you annually?  Inventory costs vary by product, for instance, a food retailer's inventory needs will vary drastically from those of a metal products distributor.  According to an article titled "Start 2006 Right by Trimming Excess Inventory to Improve Profits" by David Rubin and Rose Anne Slawson of Cohn Consulting Group, "leasing, depreciation, utilities, materials handling equipment and labor expenses related to the handling of inventory add up, many times to almost 40 percent of the value of the inventory". The inventory bill can really add up, especially for large companies.  "Best in class firms employing traditional strategies have carrying costs of 10 to 15 percent.  This accounts for hundreds of billions of dollars a year in inventory carrying costs a year."  Through the success of big name businesses such as Dell, we've seen the advantages of inventory management and the turnaround in profit thanks to proper inventory management.  Okay, we've read many, many articles about how these companies used inventory management as their secret weapon, but how do the rest of you do it?   More...

Supply Base Manager

RockySoft Supply Base Manager has been designed to handle the increasing quantity and complexity of the supplier side of modern supply chains.  Supplier variability is one of the most prevalent and preventable causes of stock-outs and delays.  To help keep tabs on your vendors, Supply Base Manager's Vendor Scorecard tracks all aspects of your vendors' activity.  Order lateness, completeness, partial receipts, and variability of lead times - and more - are all tracked and displayed in one intuitive, graphical screen.  Exception Signals monitor for particularly erratic vendor performance, and a detailed list of receipts is kept so you can present results to your vendor when the time comes for discussions and negotiations.  On an Item-By-Item basis, the Lead Time Viewer provides item level visibility into the lead times to expect on each individual item, statistically filtered to provide the best estimate of lead time possible.  Complementing this advanced tracking and display is the Lead Time Management screen, where you decide how your lead times will be managed, calculated, and assigned, giving you finer control than ever before over the accuracy and safety of your supply chain.