Effective Inventory Management
February 3-6, 2025, 10:00 – 11:30 am Central Time Each Day
Format: Live Online
Course Outline
Learn comprehensive analysis procedures and tools to maximize the productivity of your investment in stock inventory.
Session 1 – February 3, 2025 10:00 – 11:30 am Central Time
Deciding What to Stock and Forecasting Future Demand of Products
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- Goal of effective inventory management
- Determining what products to stock in each warehouse or location
- Ranking products by activity, cost of goods sold and profitability
- Ensuring that all inventory is profitable or leads to other profitable sales
- Forecasting future demand based on past usage history
- Forecasting new stock items
- Determining how to stock products with sporadic usage activity
- Identifying and correcting for unusual usage activity
- How factors such as COVID-19 and supply chain disruptions can affect a forecast
- Measuring the accuracy of your forecast
- Collaborative information from customers and salespeople
- Different types of seasonality and trends
Session 2 – February 4, 2025, 10:00 – 11:30 am Central Time
Determining When to Replenish Stock (Achieving Your Customer Service Goals)
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- Calculating accurate replenishment parameters
- Minimum/Maximum quantities
- Order points, reorder points and line points
- The difference between average lead times and anticipated lead times
- Dealing with lead times in a time of supply chain chaos
- Different method for calculating safety stock quantities
- Using safety stock to balance customer service with your investment in stock inventory
- Determining how often to replenish inventory
Session 3 – February 5, 2025, 10:00 – 11:30 am Central Time
Determining How Much to Order When Replenishing a Product
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- Economic order quantities
- Purchasing when presented with special opportunities
- Determining vendor requirements and price breaks and preseason buy
- Buying before a price increase
- Buying when faced with vendor allocations and shortages in the market
- Setting up a multi-location supply network (transfer or buy)
Session 4 – February 6, 2025, 10:00 – 11:30 am Central Time
Analyzing Your Inventory Investment and Vendor Relations
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- Fill rate, customer service level and stockouts
- Vendor analysis
- What inventory turnover really tells you
- Turn/earn index and gross margin return on investment
- Excess stock and dead inventory
- Determining your ideal inventory investment and potential turnover
- General questions to ask each vendor
- Negotiating price and future pricing
- Negotiating terms
- Developing a Vendor Compliance Template
- Resolving disputes and developing a “win-win” relationship
Meet the Instructor
Matt Schreibfeder is Vice President of Analytics for Effective Inventory Management, Inc. Matt came to EIM after extensive experience as a project analyst at Exxon Mobil. Before that Matt served as a nuclear submarine officer in the U.S. Navy. Matt earned a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Military Institute and a master’s degree in Engineering Management from Old Dominion University.