Business owners are facing a pressing supply chain issue. Generating accurate inventory numbers and ensuring all parts are accounted for is challenging. While inventory management deals solely with the number of items in stock, warehouse management deals with the overall supply chain. This includes aspects such as inventory control, purchases from vendors, stock maintenance and order fulfillment.
Small companies struggle with this issue just like midsize and large companies. For example, SimplyRFID, a small company, has run into inventory management issues. The business ships 10-20 orders daily. Each order may include one to 100 SKUs.
Since they manufacture RFID systems and maintain Underwriters Laboratories (UL) compliance, Simply RFID must account for everything from the correct bolts and washers to the latest RFID modules. To maintain UL certification, they have to record every part they build into a system.
SimplyRFID tried everything to improve its inventory management process, from off-the-shelf systems like NetSuite, to manual counting and barcodes. Nothing accomplished their objectives until the company used RFID. Now, other businesses can benefit from the knowledge SimplyRFID acquired. The company has released a comprehensive guide for automating warehouse management with RFID at a cost of less than $300 per month.
“A study by Macy’s showed normal inventory counts drift 2-3% per month. But manual inventories take too much time and effort, leaving counts to be off by as much as 36% by the end of the year. With RFID, inventory can be done monthly in less time than an annual, manual inventory,” said Carl Brown, CEO of SimplyRFID.
