Achieving Effective Inventory Management, Third Edition

Based on our most recent research and the most up-to-date "best practices," the new edition of Achieving Effective Inventory Management provides a complete guide for managing a large and often troublesome asset. This book will help you achieve the goal of effective inventory management: "to meet or exceed customers' expectations of product availability with the amount of each item that will maximize your organization's net profits or minimize its costs." The third edition includes updated discussions of:

Maintaining accurate on-hand quantities.
Warehouse and stockroom organization.
Benefits of various material storage methods.
What to do when you run out of warehouse space.
The benefits of bar coding and other technologies.
Developing your approved stock list for each warehouse.
Differences between stock for sale and MRO (maintenance, repairs, and operations) inventory.
Defining "good," "bad," and "ugly" inventory.
Simple methods to calculate your projected inventory investment and potential inventory turnover.
Why you need to rank your stocked products three ways: based on number of transactions, cost of goods sold, and profitability.
Metrics to determine the performance of your investment in stock inventory.
Accurately capturing historic usage of stocked items.
Properly stocking items with sporadic usage.
Determining the proper time period for forecasting demand.
How to properly capture demand in a distribution center environment.
Adjusting usage for unusual activity that will not reoccur.
How trends, promotions, the environment, and other factors can affect a forecast.
How to obtain, analyze, and apply collaborative information from customers, salespeople, and other sources.
Determining how much of a new item to stock and developing a new item questionnaire.
Dealing with "fashion" items that will only be marketed for a limited time.
Finding the best forecast formula for different patterns of usage.
How to easily identify items with seasonal usage patterns.
Maintaining accurate projected lead times.
Identifying the individual elements of a projected lead time.
Why long lead times are better than inconsistent lead times.
Determining the right amount of safety stock to maintain for each item.
Determining the best size replenishment order.
Utilizing residual inventory analysis and early warning reports to fine-tune replenishment parameters.
When economic order quantities are appropriate and developing the best economic order quantity model.
When to push inventory turnover with "order up to replenishment."
How to effectively increase or decrease the size of a replenishment order to meet vendor or transportation requirements.
Where Just-in-Time replenishment is best utilized.
Evaluating price break opportunities.
Liquidating excess inventory.
Developing and maintaining an effective replenishment program.
Distribution Requirements Planning (projecting needs over an extended period of time).
A comprehensive guide to physical inventory and cycle counting.
How to develop a "policies and procedures" manual for your inventory-related operations.
Implementing and maintaining a program to achieve the goal of effective inventory management.

Thirty-four pages longer than the second edition, just as easy to read, and now available at the same low price! Order Achieving Effective Inventory Management – 3rd Edition today and follow the path that leads to maximizing the productivity and profitability of your investment in stock inventory.

Jon Schreibfeder is president of Effective Inventory Management, Inc., a firm dedicated to helping manufacturers, distributors, and large retailers get the most out of their investment in stock inventory. Jon literally "grew up" in a family-owned distribution business and started studying inventory management philosophies and best practices in the late 1960s. In the early 1980s, Jon went on to become a distribution industry "trouble shooter" for a major computer company. His task was to help the computer companie' customers use their available computer tools as well as best-practice policies and procedures to better manage their largest asset: inventory. Jon founded his own independent consulting firm, Effective Inventory Management, Inc. (EIM) in April, 1996. Over the past 30 years, Jon has helped more than two thousand firms improve their productivity and profitability through better inventory management. EIM's customers range in size from a 2-million-dollar distributor to Fortune 50 companies. Customers are located throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Rim. Jon is the author of numerous articles and a series of books on effective inventory management, including the recently published Achieving Effective Inventory Management – Third Edition and the National Association of Wholesale Distributors' Guess Right – Best Practices in Demand Forecasting for Distributors.

A featured speaker at seminars and conventions throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Rim, Jon has been awarded the title "Subject Matter Expert" in inventory management by the American Productivity and Quality Center.