Your inventory is right. Without anyone keeping it up to date.
Inventory records do not fall behind because people are sloppy. They fall behind because keeping them up to date is a separate action, on top of work that already has to be finished. Anyone in a hurry skips it, and the gap grows quietly. STOCKflow removes that separate action: registration happens at the moment something is being read anyway.
We start with one item group and measure how big the gap with your records really is.
Sound familiar?
Inventory management is the foundation: if this is wrong, no workflow on top of it is right.
- The system says there is stock, the floor says there is not.
- You order more while the item is lying somewhere in the building.
- The records are updated afterwards, at the end of the day.
- Nobody trusts the stock figure, so everyone goes to look themselves.
- Corrections after a count are so big that nobody can explain them.
What it costs
What inventory that is wrong costs per year
Corrections per week
Minutes sorting it out
Weeks
Per year
276 hours
Calculated with euros per hour, and with the share of the theoretical gain you actually achieve:
- Conservative
- 110 hours4,968 euros per year
- Expected
- 166 hours7,452 euros per year
- Potential
- 221 hours9,936 euros per year
Worked example based onforty corrections a week that each take nine minutes to sort out, over 46 working weeks. Only the sorting out, without the consequences further down the chain. Not a measurement at a customer. The numbers are adjustable: put your own situation in and the outcome follows along.
How inventory keeps itself up to date
No second system arrives next to the one you have. One action disappears from the one you have.
01 / Label once
Every item or carrier gets a tag the moment it arrives or is made. Which label that becomes depends on the material, the temperature and whether it has to go through the wash.
02 / Read where the work already happens
At inbound, at a doorway, or with a handheld during a round. No scanning moment is added that was not there before; the existing moment becomes the registration.
03 / Differences visible instead of hidden
What was read against what was expected. A discrepancy surfaces on the day it appears, not at the count three months later.
What RFID inventory management does and does not do
What RFID inventory management does and does not do
Wel
- Register hundreds of items at once, through cardboard and film as well
- Hold on to the last observation: where, when, at which action
- Show the difference between expected and read straight away
- Work alongside your existing barcodes, on the same handheld
Niet
- Keep track of stock for items that carry no label
- Invent a reading moment where the process does not have one
- Read reliably on bare metal or through liquid without a label made for it
- Know the contents of a closed box, unless those contents are labeled themselves
This stands or falls with the labeling moment. If the label goes on too late, the gain further down the flow is already gone. That is the most important design choice of the whole project, which is why it comes first and not in the fine print.
What changes in practice
Inventory that is right without a count round
What you scan is what is there. The weekly spot check to see whether the system still matches, disappears.Post a receipt without typing
What arrives is read and it is on the record. Nobody copies a packing slip into a screen.You see the difference at once
Expected against read, per zone. You no longer work out where the difference is but whether you accept it.One truth instead of two
The system and the floor say the same thing. The argument about which figure is right is no longer about the data.
What this looks like in your operation
The same solution lands differently on a production floor than in a warehouse. Pick your own situation and you will see what changes for you, and what a Proof of Value measures there.
Manufacturing & material flow
Less searching for material, less manual posting and stock that adds up. Start with a small, paid Proof of Value on one material flow.
Logistics, warehousing & distribution
Receive, count and ship goods with fewer manual scans and fewer errors. Prove it first on one inbound or outbound process.
Assets & equipment
Find tools, equipment and carriers faster and lose fewer of them. Measure your time spent searching and prove it on one asset category.
How we prove it: a small, paid Proof of Value
Not the whole inventory. One item group or one zone, temporary labels, and a baseline measurement of how big the gap with your records is today.
Scope
- One item group or warehouse zone
- Temporary labels, no fixed infrastructure
- One handheld reader and a limited group of users
- Baseline measurement of the gap between system and reality
- Exceptions are recorded, including the ones that turn out badly
Go or no-go
After the measurement there is a go or no-go on the table, with the figures next to it. If the gap turns out to be small, that is the outcome and it stops there. If it turns out to be large, you know right away where it appears and what a rollout would deliver.
What you are probably thinking
Our ERP already keeps track of stock, does it not?
Your ERP keeps track of what was posted into it. That is not the same as what is actually there. The difference between those two is exactly what this is about, and that difference does not appear in the system but on the floor, at every action someone did not post.
Do we have to label everything first?
No. You start with one item group or one zone, using temporary labels. Only when the measurement shows that it works do we design where the label has to go permanently, and when. Labeling everything up front is a rollout, and you do not buy a rollout before you know that it delivers something.
What happens to our barcodes?
They stay where they are good. Barcode is cheap and works fine when someone is holding one item at a time anyway. Our handhelds read both, so the two run side by side and you do not have to get rid of anything to start.