Inventory Management: Avoiding Costly Mistakes

This FacilitiesNet article targets key questions that need to be asked when evaluating the efficiency of your inventory management. Keeping an eye on these seemingly minimal details will save you cost, labor and time in the long run. 

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Maintenance and engineering departments rely on a readily available supply of spare parts and equipment to carry out their daily duties. The goal of managers is to deliver a reliable supply of these products using a cost-effective inventory management strategy.

Unfortunately, poor inventory management practices and systems end up costing departments and organizations dearly. By examining common mistakes in key areas of inventory management — including storage equipment, the role of computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), and storeroom organization and supervision — managers can avoid costly missteps in this challenging process.

Key Questions
An effective inventory-management system ensures both parts availability and low cost. An operational assessment can reduce inventory costs 20 percent. This assessment is a useful tool for identifying the current status versus the optimum situation and developing an improvement plan. An operational assessment can provide answers to these questions:

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