Forum

Take a moment to consider your organization.

Part A: What factors affect inventory carrying costs of goods?

Part B: How do these factors vary according to qualities such as density, value, perishability, and fragility?

Part C: Describe the types of goods your organization carries and answer the questions as thoroughly as possible.

Part A: As we are healthcare supply chain, there are four major factors that affect the inventory carrying costs of goods. They are sorted from highest to lowest in terms of carrying cost:

(1) Capital Costs – Approximately 5,000 SKUs maintained at 4 week of inventory level

(2) Storage Space Costs - Approximately 53,000 sq. ft rented warehouse

(3) Inventory Service Costs – Insurance and taxes

(4) Inventory Risks – Expiration, obsolescence, damage, theft, decreased demand, lost etc.

Part B: These factors affects differently in many ways as the products we carry are very different in nature, such as; (a) the size and density of the products are from small needles to large boxes; (b) value of the products are in cents to thousands of dollars; (c) Perishability for some of the products require special treatment to maintain freshness, such as fans require to maintain certain temperature as weather changes; (d) special handling requirements for some fragile products, such as we need to bag and use special bins to ship them to the hospitals.

Part C: Various types of goods we carry at the warehouse to be used in the hospitals. The products categories are: Surgical products (i.e sutures, catheters, gloves, blades, scissors etc); Medical products (i.e. blood tubes, pressure monitors, syringes, needles etc.); Diagnostic Imaging (i.e. x-ray films, gel, chemicals etc.); Laboratory (i.e. blood tunes, needles, test tubes, pH testers etc.);, Outpatient Services (i.e. Physiotherapy); Personal Protective Equipment (i.e. gowns, eye glasses, masks, gloves etc.); Specialty Products (i.e. Hemodialysis); Housekeeping Products (i.e. paper towels,...