NYCPHP Meetup

[charles at softwareprototypes.com]

Slightly more complicated than that if the item is seasonal.

The re-order curve has to follow a stocking-delay lag and this may
zero out where expected sales of items (hockey sticks in summer) will
exceed the cost of stocking the item (purchase + storage + taking up
space for more salable items,) so its usually cheaper to have a fire
sale and then move it out to jobbers who take lots of stuff its no
longer cost-effective to hold on to. (Thats' how 99 cent stores get
most of their goods.)

The inventory system has to be modified in the following manner.

Each item in the inventory has to have a link to the state machine
which describes its (re-)order process (supply side) and its
projected consumption (demand side) and some parameters on minimum
(buy trigger) and maximum (stop further buy trigger) quantities on
hand. 

This can all vary over time and monitoring this is   the job of an
inventory manager, above and beyond bossing the inventory, delivery
and shelf stocking crew.

In addition to the GUI and DB maintenance software to maintain this
meta-information (its not the items or the QOH it __about__ the QOH)
the system itself has to have the triggers and the state machines put
into place as well as the software to set up and put down buy orders

I spent years in DP for a major food chain and retail store chain
until the owner decided that she'd rather retire rich and sold off
the family business.

-Charles-A.

---- Original Message ----
From: liquidm3 at hotmail.com
To: talk at nyphp.org, 
Subject: RE: [nycphp-talk] inventory management software
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 02:14:40 -0400

>Anyone know of some good free (or very cheap) software for inventory 
>management?
>
>I have a potential client who has this problem: their current system 
>handles 
>the inventory count OK (decrementing inventory when an order is 
>shipped), 
>but it is not very flexible and does not handle other needs.  They 
>also need 
>some way to note, for example, that item a is selling at a rate of b 
>units 
>per day, that they will be out-of-stock at the current rate in c 
>days, that 
>person d has put in an order on date e for f amount of new stock, 
>that the 
>new stock is estimated to arrive on date g, and that in-stock item h 
>(maybe 
>a different color of the same type of item or some other minor 
>variation) 
>should be pushed by sales as an alternative if item a is 
>out-of-stock.
>
>Ted
>LiquidMarkets
>Financial data and free classifieds
>http://www.liquidmarkets.com
>
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