Doing Physical Inventories....

[vonsteimel]

Greetings,

I was just wonder what is the general duration manufacturing companies before doing a Physical inventory? We manage over 7000 different parts and would like to know how long they typically wait in the industry before they do a Physical inventory?

Are they at scheduled durations, or when a specific milestone is accomplished, or both?

Has anyone found a way to avoid doing any Physical inventory whatsoever?
Thanks,

VS

 

[MikeHalloran]

Your accountants, and their auditors, will get nervous if you don't do a physical inventory at least annually.

Inventory control software vendors may suggest that their product will magically keep track of everything, and that would probably be believable, if inventories were not subject to 'shrinkage' and manipulation.

Look at it this way: PI may be your best chance to catch a thief or embezzler before they kill the business completely. Shorter PI cycles limit the damage they can do.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[mcgyvr]

I usually hear about once or twice a year..
We "should" be doing it yearly.. But its been a good 5 years since we did it last time..

 

[ornerynorsk]

Not only depends on the value of the component, but its criticality to production (lead time to find alternate source should an empty bin present itself). In our case, we rank the components on several factors, and inventory may be done quarterly, semi-annually, annually, or never, depending on those factors.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[tomwalz]

Anything really expensive (e.g. precious metal materials), anything with long lead times, anything with uncertain suppliers at least monthly. More if it is a fast moving item.

In college I worked at Sears. They would inventory the whole store once a year. Every item. I was in sporting goods and we counted fishing sinkers, bobbers, etc.

Here we inventory a couple hundred items at the end of every month for month end financials.

Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com

Good engineering starts with a Grainger Catalog.