The University of Southern California housing office knew its housing facilities, on and off campus, had upwards of 60,000 pieces of furniture and appliances. But until the student housing office deployed a radio frequency identification system, tracking which items were at what locations, as well as which were broken, missing or due for replacement, required exhaustive manual inventories. Those inventory counts, typically conducted during summers, required the hiring of temporary workers and many hours of labor to catalog what was where.

DIRECTV’s service depends on equipment imported from Asia and forward-positioned in 250 locations to support home installations. Having long used Microsoft Excel to forecast demand, the company had a rocky journey to an automated forecasting system from SAP. Randy Sullivan discusses lessons learned and ultimate benefits.

Backward-looking KPIs, especially those on safety stock, are a necessity in successful S&OP processes, says Erik Hjerpe of TreeHouse Foods, a private-brand food manufacturer. He explains why this is so and how TreeHouse employs a variety of safety stock strategies.

JDA Software Group Inc. has developed a new application that allows users to achieve correct in-stock positions across their stores.

The technology surrounding point-of-sale data has improved tremendously in recent years and companies are making much better use of this information, says Tina Lalor, senior business consultant with John Galt Solutions.

RFID retail inventory management can deliver benefits for most apparel retailers now. The basic handheld solution is not hard to understand, delivers real ROI and has a relatively low investment hurdle. Yes, employee training and compliance is a headache, but this is true for many jobs in retail, and it does not change the fact that significant sales uplift is not only possible, but typical.