The litany of headaches related to the implementation and on-going care-and-feeding of enterprise-based inventory management applications (upgrading, downtime, maintenance, hardware obsolescence, and so on) is long. These implementation issues are
enough build the savviest of companies want to engage in anything but another supply chain or inventory management software implementation.

For this reason, your organization should ponder adopting a hosted inventory management solution.

Because such solutions are web-based, adopting them is as brain friendly as selecting the processes you want to utilize or share, determining the roles of your users, and, using templates, loading the data. The biggest hurdle is usually grasping the correct data if it has not been collected before. You determine the processes you want to map and the vendor
guides you through the rest of the process.

The primary reason such solutions could be implemented so quickly is that they are based upon an "on demand" or ASP (application service provider) model. This means there is no software or hardware to implement. This costly time consuming activity has already been done by the vendor. As you pay only for the users, this saves you a lot instant and dollars. You determine the process flows (what steps you want to use), import data into the templates, upload the data into the application, and go. It really may be that brain friendly!

Naturally you also want to get your customers on-line. Most vendors will provide you with training, and also train your customers, and their customers. The more many people (customers and suppliers) using your network and extended network the greater the returns you and your customers will knowledge.

Heres your five-day roadmap for grasping better at managing your inventory:

Day 1: Due diligence
Contact vendor to arrange detailed system review
Internal review of high level program goals and system fit
Communication code goals with customers or suppliers
Follow-up questions regarding system

Day 2: Go/ no go decision
Go - Decide to go forward with project
No go - Schedule a future review of project

Day 3: Planning
Review current as is processes
Determine/ articulate VMI goals
Reduce inventory, provide inventory data to suppliers/customers, etc.
Based upon the goals determine the appropriate VMI approach(es):

Vendor Managed, Consignment, Third Party
Articulate the terms of the script (who owns the inventory payment terms, penalties, inventory levels, etc.)
Select a vendor/customer and their products for a pilot
Map out flow of data, material, and financial understanding

Day 4: Setup and pilot
Populate the applications provided tables
Setup users and their roles
Setup process flows
Setup integration at appropriate level and points
Provide training for the various roles
Load the applications required understanding
Validate the pilot
Measure if the code goals we are met

Day 5: Rollout
Adjust script if required
Add additional vendors/suppliers
Rollout additional users