http://www.imafs.com Inventory stock forecasting supply chain Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:58:26 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en http://www.imafs.com/blog/general-blog/imafs-at-the-memo/ http://www.imafs.com/blog/news/ http://www.imafs.com/blog/case-study-norampac-2/ http://www.imafs.com/blog/general-blog/case-study-societe-de-transport-de-montreal-stm/ http://www.imafs.com/blog/case-study-norampac/ http://www.imafs.com/blog/5-things-to-think-about-when-reducing-inventory/ http://www.imafs.com/blog/whos-pulling-the-weight/ AQLASS conference held last week brought together Supply Chain professionals from Quebec’s health care sector. The challenges of inventory management are important. Most managers have few tools to manage the services offered to the users based on the availability of their inventory. Supply chain leaders must manually review the Min and Max for thousands of items to prevent shortages and provide excellent service. Obviously, this is accomplished with much higher inventory levels than necessary. Nevertheless, they still face shortages. The ABC classification of their items is not frequently used.  Few tools are used to manage the delivery lead time. There is no forecasting tool to predict future needs. Communication with health-care units to determine what should be kept in inventory is still the only form of forecasting. However, there are ways to automating and optimizing the inventory management. Health care institutions in the United States have an edge over in this field. It was significant to see more than 300 Supply Chain professionals of the health care sector meet and, among other things, discuss how they could improve inventory management in our institutions. There is money to save, but more importantly, the institutions are seeking greater control of their service levels and on the availability of the medical supplies. We were proud to be invited and participate at this major event and which will undoubtedly have positive repercussions for the Quebec’s health institutions. Robert Lamarre]]> http://www.imafs.com/blog/inventory-management-and-health/ http://www.imafs.com/blog/inventory-optimization-and-customer-service-part-2/ http://www.imafs.com/blog/inventory-optimization-better-service-and-more-sales-part-1/