Field inventory management , commonly known as inventory management , is the task of understanding the stock mix of a company and the handling of the different demands placed on that stock. The demands are influenced by both external and internal factors and are balanced by the creation of purchase order requests to keep supplies at a reasonable or prescribed level. Inventory management is important for every other business enterprise.
5-515: In inventory management , a stock keeping unit (abbreviated as SKU , pronounced es-kay-YOO or SKEW ) is the unit of measure in which the stocks of a material are managed. It is a distinct type of item for sale, purchase, or tracking in inventory, such as a product or service, and all attributes associated with the item type that distinguish it from other item types (for a product, these attributes can include manufacturer, description, material, size, color, packaging, and warranty terms). When
10-742: A business records the inventory of its stock, it counts the quantity it has of each unit, or SKU. SKU can also refer to a unique identifier or code, sometimes represented via a barcode for scanning and tracking, which refers to the particular stock keeping unit. These identifiers are not regulated or standardized. When a company receives items from a vendor, it has a choice of maintaining the vendor's SKU or creating its own. This makes them distinct from Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), which are standard, global tracking units. The Universal Product Code (UPC), European Article Number (EAN) , and Australian Product Number (APN) are special cases of GTINs. Field inventory management Inventory management in
15-630: Is not enough for retailers and does not meet the demands of customers multichannel expectations. Customers expect retailers to have real-time knowledge of stock availability. This can be a challenge for retailers who may have on-line as well as bricks and mortar outlets. A good inventory management system will be able to list all stock options with a size colour matrix as well as give live reports on best or worst sellers, supply chain and sales staff. Many large organizations use sophisticated ERP systems such as Oracle EBS and SAP for inventory management. Stock modules in these ERP systems provide many of
20-422: The options needed to manage inventory. The stock size needs to correspond to the amount of products which are sold. If the stock is too large (especially with perishable goods as fruit, vegetables...) there is a risk of financial losses as some of the inventory may spoil while sitting in the store . To reduce this risk (and keep financial losses as small as possible), there is hence benefit in precisely recording
25-519: The retail supply chain follows the following sequence: Inventory management software is a tool to help efficiently manage stock. While the capabilities of applications vary, most inventory management applications give organizations a structured method of accounting for all incoming and outgoing inventory within their facilities. Organizations may save costs associated with manual inventory counts, administrative errors and reductions in inventory stock-outs. Often tracking stock just through sales and returns
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