The Loudoun Water inventory team conducted an internal review if its inventory management and warehouse administrative processes. Two main areas were identified that required immediate attention: Better utilization of SAP Material Management software and enhancement of material management and EAM business processes.
The inventory team receiving, transferring, returning, tagging, and counting processes—approximately 27,000 transactions per year—for materials were being done manually. The manual processes created duplication of effort, less transparency, and inefficient use of staff’s time.
Senior staff, in coordination with the inventory team, determined that bar coding would be the best solution with the goal of streamlining work processes, improving accessibility, and increasing timeliness and accuracy of the material master data. With a bar code solution in play, the system would support complete material tracking and provide Loudoun Water with the ability to increase productivity and quality management. In addition, material entry would be more accurate and material flow would be automated, tracked, and controlled.
Key Business Benefits:
- 30 percent acceleration in goods receipt process time and higher data capture accuracy
- 60 percent decrease in truck count times and cycle count times
- Real-time physical inventory movement visibility in SAP accelerates operational clock speed
