Inventory Management Software
If you have a multi-warehouse network, sometimes it can be difficult to work out which product should be stored where. In considering this question, many different factors need to be taken into account:
- Service proposition to customers including promised lead time from order to delivery
- Competitor locations and service propositions
- Transit time between warehouses and from warehouse to customers
- Numbers of potential stocking locations
- Speed of product movement – fast versus slow moving
- Value of products
- Market segmentation
- Types of storage required.
As a general rule, the amount of inventory needed will increase in correlation with the square root of the numbers of locations in which inventory is held. Whilst this may suggest that you should only try to have one stocking location, you may need to store products closer to local customers in order to deliver within required lead times. Having multiple storage locations may also lead to reduced costs across the network. Identifying the most beneficial inventory management solution, then, is not always obvious.
LogiMap Optimisation delivers the clarity that your inventory management operation requires. By calculating cost trade-offs across the supply chain, LogiMap can determine the most effective combination of warehouse locations, transport routes and rules for deploying inventory. It organises large numbers of stock keeping units into logistically similar product groups, allowing it to optimise product deployment decisions for hundreds of thousands of product lines.
LogiMap also enables you to easily review product deployment decisions on a regular basis. This means that optimisation continues throughout the year, taking into account seasonal periods and product life cycles to ensure that your operation is always evolving and improving.