Improve Just-in-time Inventory Management with an IT Help Desk
JIT and the Genuity Help Desk can take the stress out of a delivery system.
Are you using the just-in-time (JIT) delivery method in your business? If you’re still stocking a warehouse full of inventory, you may want to consider changing over to just-in-time delivery. The JIT system is helpful in many ways.
For example, you don’t need to have a large amount of storage space on your property, and you don’t need to rent a large storage unit somewhere to accommodate extra inventory.
Just-in-time delivery allows you to replenish your inventory as needed without having to house a large amount of product. This reduces the amount of capital you have tied up in inventory at any given time. Without your capital tied up, you’ll have more money available to grow your business and increase your profits.
If you’ve been hesitant to make the switch, you can always try it out on a smaller scale first. However, one of the keys to making JIT delivery work is proper inventory management. If you can manage your inventory right, you can make JIT work for your business.
Just-in-Time delivery increases your ROI in these key ways
Here are some of the ways a JIT strategy can boost your company’s ROI:
Less inventory waste. You won’t have to worry about accumulating a bunch of unusable inventory when you have a JIT system in place. Nobody likes dead stock since it kills profits and you still have to pay to store it.
Less capital tied up in inventory. Whenever you have to keep a bunch of inventory on hand, your capital is tied up in those items. This method made sense decades ago, but it doesn’t make sense today. With strong JIT inventory management, more of your capital will be available to invest in making your business more profitable.
Less need for warehousing. Renting a warehouse is expensive. Every dollar you save on warehousing costs is money in your bank account. With JIT delivery, your warehousing costs will be minimal, or possibly non-existent. For instance, if you’re running a retail shop, you’ll have to keep some inventory on hand and order in small quantities to replace that inventory. However, if you’re selling specialty items, you can order them from the manufacturer as your customers place their orders, and you won’t need to hold on to items for long.
Better prices from the manufacturer. With JIT, the manufacturers you source from can increase production based on their customers’ needs, which can help you get better prices. For instance, they can increase production for popular items and decrease production for slow-moving items. This saves them money on having to store so much excess inventory at all times. When a manufacturer’s costs are reduced, they can pass some of those savings onto you. Another way you can get better prices is by sourcing your inventory locally. For JIT delivery to work, you’ll need to go as local as possible. Getting locally-sourced items is cheaper because there’s less transportation and other logistics involved.
Managing your JIT inventory without software
Although JIT delivery can help you increase your profits, it requires some serious planning to make it work. For example, there are several things that can go wrong:
It can be difficult to rework orders. When you don’t keep all of your inventory on hand in large quantities, order changes are hard to accommodate.
Your suppliers might let you down. If your suppliers run out of parts, raw materials, or don’t meet production deadlines, your customers’ orders will be delayed. If your suppliers are late with their deliveries, it will impact your business as well. Additionally, if you have larger-than-usual orders, they may not be able to fulfill those orders.
Surges in business may be difficult to accommodate. If you get a sudden surge in business, you may not be able to fulfill those orders on time if you don’t have the excess stock.
These are just some of the issues you may run into using JIT delivery, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it work. If you develop a solid inventory management plan based on your actual customer sales and needs, you can make it work. However, you won’t be able to adequately plan your deliveries without software since managing your entire supply chain is quite involved.
Software to help you manage JIT inventory
Software applications can help you track inventory much more accurately than manual methods. In fact, software makes the entire process effortless. As long as you enter your data into the system, you won’t have to do any work to see what’s going on.
While it’s important to use inventory management software to track your actual inventory, it’s also important to use software to support your team. For example, implementing an internal IT help desk system will help your team manage the back-and-forth that takes place between team members, customers, manufacturers, and anyone else involved in your operations.
Your team needs a help desk
An IT help desk is the ultimate solution for your just-in-time inventory management. For example, when one of your team members learns that a supplier needs an extra three days to process an order, they can create a ticket in the system. The rest of the team will be able to see the status and update it accordingly as needed.
Having a help desk with a ticketing system will ensure that nothing will slip through the cracks. Every important task and action your team needs to manage can be turned into a ticket. When you have software managing all of your tasks and needs, your business will be more profitable.
Ready for a brilliant help desk solution? Try Genuity for free, today.
Are you ready to implement a help desk into your company? Genuity has what you need. With Genuity, your team members can open tickets for every issue that requires resolution and assign them to the right department. You can even give your suppliers an account so they can submit their own tickets if they have any questions or need any help.
If you’re ready to support your team with an IT help desk, try a free demo of Genuity, today. You won’t be disappointed.
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