Inventory Management is an essential step in the supply-chain network. Using an inventory management system, one can keep track of inventory and stock quantities in and out of the warehouse. The objective of managing inventory is to have a clear picture of the quantities that need to be addressed and be aware of inventory locations at any given time.
While keeping track of stock manually can be troublesome and difficult, properly controlled inventory automatically sets the supply-chain management in place.
This is where Inventory Management system comes to the rescue! Having a reliable inventory management system is vital to ensure you don’t spend your time figuring out how much stock you have and avoid stock-outs. Moreover, an efficient Inventory Management system helps inventory businesses carry out crucial tasks such as tracking shipments, monitoring products levels, scanning barcodes, and more.
Core Operations
Inventory management systems are designed to address two main areas: inventory control and warehouse management.Inventory Control
Inventory control is at the core of an inventory management system. It is concerned with handling products and goods that are already in stock at the warehouse. Inventory management tools can categorize products by type, location, Stock Keeping Unit (SKU), and serial number. Using the system, you can manage inventory and track stocks in and out of the warehouse and among the different warehouses of your business.
Warehouse Management
A warehouse management system allows you to administer all warehouse-related operations. From setting up the warehouse to managing goods and materials within, the system gives you control over your various warehouses and their floor utilization. Warehouse management enables you to control the daily warehouse tasks such as organizing, tracking, and handling goods and managing space and location of items within. For example, you can know the bin number and the picking sequence for specific products.
These are the typical areas that any inventory management system should cover. However, there are various other additional functionalities to consider when looking to implement an optimal system to manage your stock items and warehouses.
5 must-have added features of every Inventory Management System
Besides the core role of stock and warehouse management, an inventory system can have distinctive features based on business needs. Business owners can integrate several elements as per their industry and requirements. However, there are some standard features that every inventory management system should have.
In this section, we’ll go over the top 5 extra features that inventory management systems need to have to further optimize the management of stock items and relevant operations.
Barcoding
Barcodes are labels containing numbers written in a particular format, used to identify the product and retrieve its relevant details, usually by scanning the barcode label. Barcoding software helps eliminate the human errors caused by entering data manually. It automates business functions that require communication with other parts of the system. Barcode scanning devices can improve inventory accuracy, speed up back-office processes, and improve stock refill.
Alerts
With the inventory alerts feature, you can find out the possible issues which might occur in the future by receiving email, SMS, or other types of alerts. You can quickly and easily be notified about in and out stock, shipments status, low inventory stock, etc. This will help you manage all the important aspects of running the inventory business accurately by setting up proper inventory alerts as needed to respond to them in a timely manner.
Reports and Dashboard
Effective business decisions require the availability of accurate and timely data. Inventory processing systems should provide relevant stock information such as product status, warehouses, order status, shipment, etc. The system should allow you to generate detailed and customized reports regarding your stocks, inventory, purchase orders, sales, and much more. On the other hand, the dashboard provides a real-time view and insights of your inventory status and key areas that need watching.
Financial Integration
To optimize the inventory management system, it should be integrated with financial management software. This integration provides abilities to plan monetary workflows effectively and minimize labour work and errors caused by manual calculations. This way, you will be able to handle all financial processes across the organization digitally.
IoT Integration
The Internet of things is a network of physical objects embedded with sensors and software to connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet.
IoT devices provide a more efficient way of storing and distributing items. For example, with IoT, you don’t need to track items and goods manually as they can be tracked automatically within the system. IoT-based systems can deliver accurate location monitoring and enhanced tracking by providing real-time data about the location of items and their movement. This way, you will know when an item enters or leaves the warehouse or even moves in the warehouse. IoT technologies can help reduce manual labour work and thus lower human errors as well as save time, efforts, and consequently cost.
To summarize..
There are the core features that every inventory management system should have, such as inventory control and warehouse management. However, here are other extra features that can greatly add value to your system; barcoding to scan items quickly, alerts to stay up-to-date with your stock status, dashboarding and advanced reporting, financial integration, and IoT devices can help you run an efficient inventory workflow timely and productively.
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