Inventory Summary

Inventory Systems Summary

QRB/501

Robert Kalle

Christine Brown-Hallmark Flowers

Felecia Robinson-Drug Enforcement Administration

Anthony Daino-Antelope Valley Hospital

DeNell Stewart-Harley Davidson

Greg Lawson-Zara's Retailers

July 12, 2010

Inventory Systems Summary

Inventory management systems are a critical aspect of businesses. Monitoring inventory levels are important for generating revenue and profits. The Inventory Management Systems were used to track and monitor inventory levels and often tracked with modern software systems. Hallmark Flowers, Drug Enforcement Administration, Antelope Valley Hospital, Harley Davidson, and Zara use software inventory systems to monitor and track their inventory levels.

All of these companies use some form of software for their inventory system; however, Antelope Valley Hospital, Zara, Harley Davidson and the Drug Enforcement Administration use a SKU or barcode system to keep track of their inventory. Hallmark flowers do not use a SKU or barcode system because they are dealing with fresh flowers. All five companies, including Hallmark Flowers have a central warehouse in which the inventory is kept.

Some advantages of the inventory systems used with all five companies include; all the information centrally located, there is the ability to know where the supplies are and what shape they are in, each company can keep an account of what needs to be reordered and the warehouse notifies the accounting department of what was ordered versus what was received. When a customer puts in an order, the product can be shipped directly from the warehouse to save time. This makes it easy for the company and the customer is happy because he or she received the product in a timely manner.

Even though the inventory systems have been successful with these companies thus far, there are some disadvantages. When ordering a product as needed, it can be cost-effective, rather than ordering by the bulk, there may be a more slowly...