JIT vs. Quarterly Inventory Strategies
Inventory management and the best strategy to successfully achieve maximum efficiency. It's the long-standing question of any distribution or supply channel. What is the best methodology to follow when managing inventory? Just-in-Time (JIT) relies heavily on the concept of inventory turns. The more inventory turns, the less carrying cost a supplier must maintain. Lower carrying costs result in a lower market resale price.
JIT is one method by which suppliers can help control their costs. Why order a year's worth of inventory when you can rely on the supply chain to help "offload" some of those costs on your partners? Furthermore, a JIT strategy allows the business to ebb and flow with demand fluctuations within their respective market(s).
In certain instances, a JIT strategy does hold merit. However, at Dultmeier Sales we have a contrarian approach to this type of strategy. While we have certain products lines where a JIT strategy does work, there are other lines where we cannot afford to not have the products on the shelf - and ready to ship promptly.
Our business is an extremely cyclical one. Roughly 50% of our revenue comes in about a three-month period. Due to the nature of our business, we must have inventory on-hand. Therefore, we load up heavy in the fall and winter in preparation for the spring season. In doing so, we allow our customers to use a JIT approach to run their businesses. This helps our customers lower their carrying costs & provide them with fast deliveries. Furthermore, when critical equipment failure occurs - we have the products on the shelf to get them back to operational status - as soon as possible.
What We Do For You
We pride ourselves on being a business partner of this nature. Inventory levels are something we constantly focus upon and look for ways in which we can continually provide better service levels with higher order fill rates and faster, more accurate shipping.
Because let's face it, when you're down and out - you need the part or piece of equipment fast. By maintaining considerably larger inventory levels than the competition, we can effectively promise a 95%+ fill rate on stock orders.
That means if you order 20 items - we have 19 in stock ready to ship promptly. And most of the time it's consolidated from one origination point - meaning we help lower and control freight costs for our customers - by reducing multiple shipment orders. Consequently, one shipment means one freight bill.
In addition to healthy inventory levels, we pride ourselves on warehouse accuracy. In all honesty, if we have the item on the shelf, but cannot get it to the customer for whatever reason - we didn't live up to our promise of impeccable service. Therefore, it has been and will continue to be our long-standing goal to exceed and maintain 99.8% shipping accuracy. This means we accurately ship the item(s), and quantities, written on the sales order over 99/100 times.
You need it - We have it. That was fast. Pretty simple concept. But, to produce extreme simplicity, one must solve the extremely complex. Therefore, we continue to invest in ourselves and our operating systems. We continually invest in our people and technology to ensure that we constantly improve and strive for the ever elusive 100% success rate for our customers.
Additional Value Added Services
We back our inventory strategy up with some of the best technical expertise in the industries we serve. With over 250 years of combined technical experience, we have most likely run across your application question. Furthermore, if we don't know, we will help to provide a solution that improves the efficiency of your operation - all the while, doing our best to help lower your operating costs. We invest in our people, technology, and inventory to make your business more profitable and efficient.
We also want to highlight the fact that we have a Free Freight Program that runs throughout the year. This can further help reduce costs for our customers to help them maintain a higher level of profitability. You can check out our Free Freight Program right here.
