Chinese New Year might seem like a long way off, but smart inventory managers will be starting to plan for this event very soon. The more prepared you are, the greater your ability to ensure that this annual supplier shutdown causes as little disruption as possible. In this post we...Read more

In its simplest form, a bill of materials (BOM) is a list of components, parts or materials required to manufacture, assemble or repair a product. A BOM is often hierarchical, with the finished product at the top and sub-items below. In inventory management a BOM is critical to ensure the...Read more

When finished goods are built from a set of components, a Bill of Materials (BOM) is extremely useful for inventory management purposes. A bill of materials is most often associated with production planning in manufacturing, being used in manufacturing software, such as materials resource planning systems (MRPs). BOMs are also very...Read more

As any inventory manager will tell you; it doesn’t matter how sophisticated their ERP software is, they still have to use spreadsheets to manually set reordering parameters and then input the information back into their system, so it can inform purchasing decisions. Unfortunately, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is no...Read more

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted many weaknesses in supply chains across the globe. Common challenges include unpredictable customer behaviour, unreliable inventory supplies, rising logistical costs and internal capacity constraints. It’s apparent that those supply chain management (SCM) teams that have been able to adapt their operations and respond quickly to...Read more

The growth of ecommerce in 2020 was phenomenal, as more customers, B2B and B2C alike, shopped online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In Q3 of 2020 Amazon reported sales up 37% year-on-year, with eBay close behind on 25%. In June 2020 a UK study revealed that almost half (46%) of...Read more