Managing inventory effectively is critical for the success of any business, regardless of its size or industry. Effective inventory management ensures that your businesses have the right level of stock to meet customer demand while avoiding overstocking, which ties up capital and increases storage costs.
Forecasting is an essential component of inventory management as it enables your businesses to predict future demand and plan your inventory levels accordingly. Forecasting can also help your businesses optimise their supply chain by identifying potential bottlenecks and ensuring timely delivery of goods.
In this training course, we will dive deeper into the topic of inventory management and forecasting, exploring different strategies and tools that businesses can use to optimise your inventory management practices. We will also discuss the benefits of effective inventory management and forecasting, and provide practical tips on how your businesses can improve their processes to achieve greater efficiency and profitability.
Client requirements will be accommodated whenever possible, presenting a half day overview, or a more detailed full day session, depending on level of study / emphasis required.
Inventory Management & Forecasting Course Includes:
- The Lead-Time Gap (P:D Ratio)
- Static Safety Stocks including service levels
- Dynamic Safety Stocks (Days/weeks of Supply)
- Min-Max levels
- Re-order Points
- EOQ (Economic Order Quantity) and Total Inventory Cost
- De-coupling points and buffers in Just-In-Time Supply Chains
- Inventory Holding Costs (inc how they can affect margin)
- True cost of Inventory, True cost of variety
- Demand Amplification (Forrester / Bullwhip effect)
- Multi-location stock holding (inc Uneven Demand at Plant Level)
- Consignment Stocking
- VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) and CMI (Co-Managed Inventory)
- Discussion :- Obsolescence
- ABC classification
- Total Lead time vs Actual / Quoted Lead Time
- Replenishment systems (Kanban etc)
- Backflushing
- Demand patterns, seasonality and volatility
- Discussion :- Methods of forecasting (statistical demand smoothing etc)
- Moving Averages – simple and weighted
- Producing basic forecasts within Excel
- Forecast Error (including examples of extreme deviations from anticipated demand with reasons for problem explained)
- How computerised systems (ERP etc) deal with forecasts
- Constraining the Forecast – Pyramid (Roll-up / Force down )
- Discussion :- Consequences of poor forecasts
- Quiz to test understanding