Structured Process Analysis

Overview of Inventory Management Process (Margareth Espinal)

Inventory management is a key aspect of operations research that involves planning, controlling, and optimizing the flow of goods and materials in a business. It can help reduce costs, improve customer service, and enhance operational efficiency. The scope behind’s Benchmark Scientific is a very straightforward system. It consists of replenishment lead time, carrying cost, asset management, Inventory forecast, inventory evaluation, price forecasting, physical Inventory, available space, quality management, replenishment, returns, Demos and defective goods and lastly demand forecasting. These all come together to determine the needs of the company and ultimately fulfill customers orders.

Detailed Step By Step Processes
The following is a detailed step by step process to demonstrate Benchmark Scientific Inventory Processes including the Initial Customer Inquiry, Order Fulfillment and Inventory Replenishment

Customer Inquiry Process

1. Customer contacts Benchmark and places an inquiry with a Product Manager about potential securing a product. Inquiries are submitted through the company’s website, via phone call or emails.

2. Product Manager makes arrangements for a product demonstration by contacting the Customer Service Team

3. Customer Service Team contacts third party distributor who sends the product to the end user location

Order Fulfillment Process

1. When the customer is ready to place an order, they contact the Sales Department

2. Sales Rep generates a quote in Quickbooks and submits to the customer

3. Correspondence between Sales Rep and customer transpires to finalize contract details relating to final product, scope and pricing. 

4. Once finalized, Sales Rep submits an order request to the Customer Service Team

5. The Customer Service Team enters the order form into Quickbooks which is then printed out and placed in an inventory bin for fulfillment. Whenever orders are entered into Quickbooks, product quantities are updated.

6. The warehouse team receives the bin, picks the products that are listed within on the order form, completes any customization, packages the final product and ships to the customer.

7. Once shipping is completed, an invoice is inputted into Quickbooks and submit to customer for payment

Inventory Replenishment Process

1. Every 2 weeks the Purchasing Department completes analysis. Data is exported from Quickbooks and entered into an excel spreadsheet. The Purchasing Department completes a forecast based on historic trends along with recent customer demands and any known seasonality to determine the appropriate inventory level for each materials, supplies and product.

2. The forecast is compared to the current inventory levels to determine what products and materials to order.

3. Purchasing Department contacts their vendors directly to place the order(s)

4. Orders are received by the Receiving Department within the Warehouse Team who valid what materials, supplies and products arrived against the purchase order.

5. The final order/shipment slips is given to the Purchasing Team who then enters the final order into Quickbooks to update the inventory

Inventory Management Process Review (Ashley Amigon Garcia)

      Benchmarks’ scientific inventory management process has a well-structured and efficient   process. The collection of data, inventory, and orders are all inputted in Quickbooks by the Purchasing department. This app supports to the help to check inventory. It is used to generate quotes, product inquiry, inventory tracking, accounting, and many more. As mentioned, after a customer has ordered their product, every two weeks the department updates it and populates it to an excel sheet. This helps show what type of products is still available and what needs to be ordered. One of the main issues with this app is that when wanting to transfer data into a different spreadsheet, it would be added manually. It takes up valuable time and it shows the limitation of what this app can do. In today's time, technology is constantly being updated. Quickbooks needs to be adaptable and up to date to recent trends, if not, it can lead to major errors, disrupt workflow, and can result into incomplete or inaccurate data. 

       The five components of the IS are hardware, software, data, people, and processes.  In other words, Information System (IS) is defined as a set of interrelated components that collect, process, store, and distribute information to support decision making and control in an organization (Bourgeois, 2019). In this case, Information systems (is) supports inventory. Since it supports the process of tracking stock levels, ordering new inventory, and managing warehouse operations. The five components include:

Hardware: Computers are used to input or process data within the company and for each department to use 

Software: Quickbooks is a software that enables tracking, analysis, and reporting of data

Data: This contains information about stock levels, item details, suppliers, and orders

People: Personnel responsible for managing inventory, including warehouse staff, and managers

Inventory Management Information System Review (Amanda Dixon)

Benchmark Scientific’s Inventory Management process has several information silos embedded. According to our textbook, information silos occur whenever there is a disjointment or isolation of data within a separate information system (Kroenke & Boyle, 2022). Some examples of the information silos that exist includes:

1. Lack of central database to capture customer inquiries that the sales team receive that could aid the purchasing department to determine customer demands and forecast

2. Warehouse Team who has first hand knowledge of current inventory levels does not have access to Quickbooks on a regular basis to confirm accuracy and capture any shrinkage that could result from defective and/or damaged products

3. Purchasing Department maintains an forecast excel spreadsheet that is inaccessible to other departments who could use this information to determine staffing levels and employees schedules

The central IS system that is used throughout the inventory process is Quickbooks. Unfortunately, this software does not eliminate the silos that exist. The functionality of Quickbooks is very limited as it relates to effectively managing a manufacturing company that aspires to grow and expand. Quickbooks is an accounting software that currently does not possess the capabilities to support other enterprise functions such as customer and vendor management, human resource functionality, risk and safety management and so forth.

A customer relationship management (CRM) system is an application that is focused on managing customer interactions. An effective CRM system tracks all customer related activities stemming from prospecting and attracting new clients to the termination of the business relationship. Benchmark Scientific currently does not have a CRM system in place. The only customer tracker that they currently have is the customer details that are entered into Quickbooks. There is no formal system in place to manage the full life cycle of customers. 

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a database that consolidates and integrates all the business functions into one platform. An ERP system has all the features of CRM but also integrates other business functions such as accounting, inventory management, supplier management and human resources. According to Eric Kimberling, some of the major ERP Systems in the industry includes Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle Fusion Cloud, Infor, and SAP (2023). Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is a software that integrates disjointed applications, creating connections to address any potential information silos. This application is generally used by non-manufacturing companies and corporations who may not be willing to fully convert to a new ERP system. Benchmark does not have an ERP or EAI System in place. Separate IS are used to fulfill different business processes. For instance, Quickbooks is used to manage the inventory and accounting functions. ADP is used to manage payroll and time and attendance. The human resources department uses another third party software to manage the life cycle of employees. Each IS system is separate and lacks integration.

An inter-enterprise IS System is the integration of IS between external organizations. Benchmark Scientific does not have an inter-enterprise IS system. Communications with external stakeholders are done manually via phone calls, emails or through directly accessing the respective portals. For instance, whenever the purchasing department needs to order a particular material, this is done manually by the employee calling or sending an email to the supplier.