Customer demand is again booming in many markets — and manufacturers are boosting inventories back to prerecession levels to keep up. Savvy execs at these firms will adopt recognized best practices to guarantee timely deliveries, minimal inventory, and maximum cash flow.
The top three inventory-management practices (in place at more than one-third of plants around the world) are:
- Just-in-time deliveries (in place at 41% of plants)
- Pull systems with kanban signals (35%)
- Vendor-managed or -owned inventories (34%)
Inventory-Management Practices
|
|
All Plants |
U.S. Plants |
International Plants |
|
Just-in-time supplier deliveries |
40.6% |
44.5% |
31.6% |
|
Pull systems with kanban signals |
34.8% |
41.3% |
19.6% |
|
Vendor-managed or -owned inventories |
34.1% |
37.1% |
27.1% |
|
One-piece flow techniques |
28.0% |
31.0% |
21.1% |
|
Quick equipment changeovers |
25.1% |
29.7% |
14.3% |
|
Parts/goods supermarkets |
18.3% |
19.7% |
15.0% |
|
Production leveling/heijunka |
13.8% |
14.8% |
11.3% |
|
RFID and computerized inventory tracking |
13.1% |
10.0% |
20.3% |
|
None of these |
19.2% |
16.8% |
24.8% |
Source: 2010 MPI Manufacturing Study.
About 10% of manufacturers have all three of the top practices in place (14% of U.S. plants and only 3% of international plants). Yet 19% of manufacturers have no inventory-management best practices in place (17% of U.S. plants and 25% of international plants) — a troubling sign for these firms as production volumes rise.
Does your firm have all three top practices in place?
By John R. Brandt, CEO, The MPI Group
It'll be such a troubling event whenever there's an excess or a deficiency in the inventory, due to the fact that it costs money to return or produce one, and even if it is just a single piece. That is the reason why inventory management is one of the crucial parts of manufacturing, where every piece needs to be equal to the number of related supply, to maintain a perfect production flow.
Posted by: Jamie Shellman | 06/08/2011 at 01:31 PM