[Here's another question submitted by someone looking for inventory advice]
I have an old truck I use for keeping stock that is for refilling my other service vehicles. It sort of is like a tender ship we used to have when I was in the Navy. It even carries fan belts and other stuff to repair the service trucks. How can I keep straight what I doled out to each service truck?
In this case, I would first suggest that you set your vehicles up as locations in your inventory system. They are, after all, physical areas in which you keep materials that you want to track, so despite the fact that the vehicles are also equipment stock that you might maintain in your inventory model (with schedules tracked for warranties, oil changes, insurance renewals and the like) the trucks all represent locations in which you keep inventory items.
If it were me, I’d go into SIMMS [my own chosen inventory management system] and create the following location numbers and names:
TT1, TT1-IH1, TT1-BIN1, TT1BIN2, TT1BIN3…and as many more as I need. The letters TT refer to Tender Truck (my name for the old truck described above). The IH refers to In- House (the container/section of the tender truck that holds the fanbelts and other such items that repair the service vehicles). The BINs are the assorted bins that hold the replenishing stock that the tender truck “doles out”. Anything after the TT1- in the lebel would be for a sub-location (stock area) of the Tender Truck.
Next, I would create the same breakdown for the service vehicles: one location for each service truck (ST1, for example) and then one each for its own particular inventory subdivisions (SHF1 could be Shelf One, RK2 could be Rack Two, and so forth).
Based on this, you would quickly see the pattern of transactions develop, such as inventory transfers like the following:
Transfer 0f 50 widgets from TT1-BIN1 to ST3-SHF1, thus giving the first shelf in Service Truck Three a refill of widgets, and decreasing the widget stock of Bin One on the Tender Truck by the same quantity. Both drivers could keep track of all such transfers and you would know where things are. In the case of repairs, this is where you use the in-house (IH) location. Your transfer of goods would be from TT1-IH1 to ST3, for example, to allot a new set of wiper blades to Service Vehicle 3. And if the fan belt was needed to repair the Tender Truck itself, then the fan belt would be transferred from TT1-IH1 to TT1. Run a stock report of any of the vehicles and you can see how much stock has moved in and out, such as when Service Truck Three invoiced out 20 widgets to the South Power Plant during its afternoon service rounds.
Managing the inventory this way allows for your system to be maintained and at all points in time you know where the stock items are: they are received into your warehouse, transferred to your Tender Truck, then transferred to your Service Trucks and sold from there to clients or customers or to projects that your Service Trucks maintain. Vehicle maintenance is easy to plan for, to list and to assess.
I hope this style of management helps others who have similar concerns about details and accuracy in a similar system model.
