Article Details

Role of Information Technology and Inventory Management Tools in Supply Chain Management | Original Article

Apurva Pawar*, B. E. Narkhede, V. V. S. S. Rao, in Journal of Advances in Science and Technology | Science & Technology

ABSTRACT:

In today’s market, supply chain management is an integral part of any industry. Supply chain management is end to end process in all industries. It is a flow of materials, information and resources from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer. Major problems in industry are mostly faced due to poor supply chain management. Reasons of these problems are mainly because of insufficient information, uncertainty in and supply, etc. To avoid all these problems proper supply chain management is necessary. Information Technology facilitates smooth functioning of supply chain. The appropriate flow of information is must to run any supply chain. Smooth IT processes reduces the lead time. In this paper different information technology tools are explained such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Web services, Bar code, RFID, EID, etc. In supply chain management JIT inventory management is also an important tool. In JIT inventory management technique, an item will be ordered only if it is needed for shipping or manufacturing. Inventory is stock of physical goods which adds cost to working capital and current assets. Building inventory is necessary to provide good services to the customers. For right balance of stock in warehouse, inventory management is important. Understanding of customer demand is important for proper Inventory control. Inventory management techniques are discussed below such as ABC analysis, FSN analysis and EOQ. To manage forward and reverse flows in supply chain, firms have to deal with upstream supplier exchanges and downstream customer demands.