The Importance of Inventory Visibility in the Modern Supply Chain
A lack of inventory visibility in supply chains can negatively affect your organization’s profitability and operating efficiency. To remain competitive in the modern business ecosystem, you must proactively work to eliminate supply chain blind spots and increase overall visibility.
Join us as we take a deep dive into this important supply chain-related topic, including the benefits of inventory visibility and how you can increase visibility and transparency.
Understanding Inventory Visibility
The term “inventory visibility” refers to your organization’s ability to track and monitor the inventory in stock at any given time.
If you have low visibility, you’ll experience discrepancies between your physical count and digital stock. Naturally, this can cause a whole host of headaches, including stock-outs, illiquidity, and cash flow challenges.
Improving inventory visibility will make you better able to serve your clients. It will also help you reduce warehousing and storage costs, track products as they enter and depart your facility, and increase overall profitability.
Inventory Visibility Challenges of Today
Several factors can negatively impact inventory optimization and lead to count discrepancies. One common issue is an overreliance on manual stock management practices. When your team has to manually count stock and enter data, errors are bound to occur.
Another common inventory visibility challenge is using disparate systems that don’t communicate or share information. When various departments use isolated, antiquated systems, no one is on the same page.
Benefits of Inventory Visibility
The key benefits of increasing inventory optimization include:
- Increased operational efficiency
- Optimal stock levels
- Reduced risk of stock-outs or service disruptions
- Enhanced customer experience
- More accurate forecasting
- Improved resource allocation
- Better customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Increased profitability
As you can see, increasing inventory visibility can positively impact virtually every meaningful business metric. The question is, how can you optimize inventory in your supply chain?
How to Improve Inventory Visibility in Your Supply Chain
Here are a few simple ways to improve inventory optimization in your supply chain:
Make Use of WMS/ERP Solutions
Enterprise resource planning systems and warehouse management solutions can significantly increase inventory visibility.
Alone, each of these technologies can provide real-time insights into available stock, inventory counts, and other crucial data. However, you can maximize the efficacy of your existing ERP or WMS solution by pairing it with Rebound Dynamics’ proprietary Smart MRO Solutions.
Our suite of solutions includes remote inventory management software, smart warehousing tools to eliminate the need for traditional cycle counts, and much more. We provide the resources you need to regain control of your supply chain.
Automate Cycle Counts
Cycle counts are a long-standing method for tracking inventory without disrupting your operations. While this approach can help you track inventory, it’s also labor-intensive. As such, it can hinder your ability to carry out other business-critical tasks.
Fortunately, SmartWarehouse makes it easy to automate cycle counts. SmartWarehouse is a dynamic inventory visibility solution that tracks every item in your inventory from the moment it enters your facility to the moment it’s shipped out.
Implement Remote Tracking Systems
Remote tracking systems keep your management personnel in the loop no matter where they are.
These remote devices enable your facility manager to precisely track the status of all inventory. In turn, they can use this data to allocate resources and manage warehouse space more effectively.
Optimize Your Warehouse Space
Speaking of warehouse space, it’s crucial to optimize the way you manage and allocate storage capacity in your facility. Doing so will enable you to take on more stock and effectively track your existing inventory.
Learn How You Can Streamline Inventory Visibility with Rebound Dynamics
If you want to maximize inventory optimization in supply chains, you need to ditch manual processes and human data entry and partner with Rebound Dynamics.
At Rebound Dynamics, we provide access to a proprietary platform that offers cloud-based inventory management and visibility. Contact us today to learn more.