Inventory Management: Key Challenges and Solutions

Inventory management is one of the critical and complex processes in the manufacturing industry. It involves planning, organising, and controlling the flow of inventory items from the source to the destination, ensuring the right materials, components, and finished products are available when needed. Efficient inventory control can reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, and increase profitability. 

However, inventory management also poses many challenges and pain points for the manufacturers. Let’s go over some of the key challenges, and how Odoo ERP can serve as your shield, safeguarding your brand from potential setbacks.

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Key inventory control challenges in the manufacturing industry

The manufacturing industry faces a unique set of challenges when it comes to inventory control, from supply chain complexities to demand forecasting and production variations. These issues can arise in different ways - depending on your business size, but they lead to one of three costly problems such as overstock, overstock, or lost inventory. Here are some of the main obstacles.

Difficulty in demand forecasting

Demand forecasting is essential for inventory control. It helps manufacturers adjust their inventory levels and production plans according to the expected demand. However, demand forecasting can be inaccurate or unreliable due to various factors such as inadequate historical sales data, poor communication across departments (sales, marketing, and production), lack of customer feedback, seasonality, variability, etc. Inaccurate demand forecasting can lead to overstocking or understocking of inventory items which can affect production efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Manually inventory management processes

Many manufacturers rely on manual methods to count and keep tabs on their raw materials, works-in-progress, and finished products. They often use spreadsheets to record this data. However, as their manufacturing operations grow, the manual approach becomes less efficient and more prone to errors.

Besides, when manufacturers use multiple locations or stores to track their inventory, it can result in fragmented data. This fragmentation makes it challenging to operate smoothly across various sales channels, including online sales, physical stores, and distribution networks. During busy times like peak seasons or special events like flash sales, the lack of real-time visibility into inventory levels can lead to issues like stockouts or having too much stock on hand.

Supply chain complexity

Modern supply chains can be complex, involving multiple suppliers, distributors, and transportation routes. Moreover, some external factors such as natural disasters, geopolitical issues, or supplier problems can result in delayed deliveries, shortages, or quality issues. 

If you don’t maintain sufficient safety stock, these supply chain hurdles can lead to stockouts of raw materials and components for production. Coordinating all these moving parts and making sure things arrive on time can be quite a challenge.

Cost management

Cost management in inventory poses challenges for manufacturers, involving striking a balance between carrying costs (like storage and obsolescence) and ordering costs. When there’s too much inventory, it ties up money in storage, insurance, and potential waste if things expire or become unsellable. 

On the other hand, stockouts can lead to missed sales and extra expenses from rush orders. Ordering can become more costly with inefficient practices, as can labor and storage space. The biggest cost of all is the missed opportunities when capital is tied up in inventory instead of being used for growth or strategic investments. Managing variable demand, supplier relations, and technology investments while considering factors like economic order quantity (EOQ) and just-in-time (JIT) practices is essential. 

Inventory management tips for manufacturers

Effective inventory management is crucial for manufacturing businesses to ensure smooth operations, minimise costs, and meet customer demands. Here are some tips to help you manage your manufacturing inventory more efficiently:

• Regularly audit inventory: Conduct regular physical counts or cycle counts to ensure the accuracy of your inventory levels
• Adopt inventory management software: Implement an inventory management solution that can help automate tracking, and reorder points, and provide real-time visibility into your inventory levels and trends
• Set reorder points and safety levels: Determine optimal reorder points for each item based on lead times, demand variability, and usage rates
• Establish supplier relationships: Build strong relationships with reliable suppliers to ensure a steady supply of materials. Consider using just-in-time (JIT) inventory practices for critical components
• Demand forecasting: Use historical data and market trends to forecast demand more accurately. Collaborate with sales and marketing teams to gather insights and align forecasts.

How does Odoo help manufacturers control inventory?

Odoo is a comprehensive and modular ERP software that can cater to the needs of various types of businesses such as manufacturing, retail, service, e-commerce, etc. Odoo helps manufacturers to control their inventory with its module called Inventory. 

The inventory module allows manufacturers to track and control their stock movements across multiple locations such as warehouses, production sites, distribution centers, etc., and automate their inventory operations with rules and workflows. The inventory module also provides benefits as below.

Read more: Odoo Inventory Management - Module Features, Pricing, & User Reviews

Automate inventory operations

Odoo empowers manufacturers with a comprehensive set of tools for efficient inventory management:

• Easily create and fulfill orders with or without barcode scanners, based on product availability
• Conduct precise inventory checks for zones, specific products, lots, or pallets/boxes, with Odoo’s cycle counts
• Organise your warehouse effectively using hierarchical structures like zones, rows, and shelves
• Seamlessly handle manufacturing and repair orders through integrated apps
• Keep tight control over incoming products, ensuring they match your supplier orders
• Streamline packing processes with one-click actions and barcode assignments for efficient order tracking
• Effortlessly manage product disposal, complete with detailed reports on costs, reasons, and volumes
• Easily move products between different locations using a straightforward transfer interface.

Improve performance and process times

Odoo Inventory provides you with a smart double-entry inventory system, allowing manufacturers to record every stock movement as a double-entry transaction with a source and a destination location. With Odoo's double-entry inventory, there are no separate actions for stock input, output, or transformation. Instead, all activities involve moving stock between different locations.

Eliminate stockouts with fully automated replenishment

By continuously monitoring your inventory level, Odoo triggers automated replenishment orders at the right time. This way helps you optimise your stock levels, reduce excess inventory costs, and ensure you always have the right products in stock to meet customer demands.

Optimise inventory valuation

Odoo offers various inventory costing methods, including FIFO, Average Cost (AVCO), and Standard Price. You can also reincorporate landed costs into your product cost for a precise inventory valuation.

Besides, Odoo allows you to set up perpetual (real-time, automated) or periodic inventory valuation modes by product, giving you flexibility and accuracy in managing your inventory.

Enhance productivity

You can use barcode scanners or mobile devices to quickly and accurately validate your stock movements, making tasks like receiving shipments and packing orders faster and less prone to errors. Additionally, Odoo's scheduler can automatically initiate these operations for you, taking into account product availability and order forecasts, and streamlining your inventory processes.

Inventory reports and dashboards

Odoo Inventory helps manufacturers keep an eye on their inventory using real-time data. You can see important numbers like how much stock you have, how fast it's selling, and how much it's worth. Plus, you can predict when products will be available based on sales orders, purchase orders, or manufacturing orders. 

Odoo Inventory works smoothly with other Odoo modules like Manufacturing, Sales, and Purchase to make sure everything runs efficiently, improving production quality and business profits.

Refine processes and boost profit

Poor inventory management can lead to substantial financial losses. However, successful manufacturers thrive thanks to proactive inventory systems that work on their behalf. While it may seem daunting, there are ERP systems like Odoo available to assist you in this endeavor.

Keep in mind that an effective inventory management system can lower holding costs, enhance your financial performance, analyse sales trends, forecast future sales, and better prepare for unforeseen challenges. Now is the time to assert control over your inventory management and prevent financial losses. Find out more about how Odoo can help you streamline inventory management.