Inventory Management Strategies of Food Manufacturing Industries in a developing economy

Retailing can be defined in two ways, either as a set of functions that adds value to products/services that are sold to end users (functional understanding of retailing) or as a specific institution within a marketing channel that executes retail functions (institutional understanding). The functional view explains retailing as an exchange activity in order to connect a point of production with a point of consumption. These exchange processes refer to (see Kotzab & Bjerre, 2005): • Marketing processes, including all activities that provide a customized set of products/services as demanded by customers/consumers (which is basically known as offering a customer-oriented assortment in terms of quality and quantity) • Logistics processes, including all activities that help to transfer this specific set of products/services to the markets (such as transportation, breaking bulk and inventory management) • Assisting processes, which refer to all activities that facilitate a purchase (such as credit function, promotion or advice function). The orchestration of these functions leads to various types of retail formats such as store-based retailers (e.g., hypermarkets or category killers), non-store-based retailers (e.g., mail-order retailing or electronic commerce) and hybrid retailers (e.g., home delivery services) (Coughlan et al., 2006). Retailing plays a vital role in today’s economy, but many retailing companies face economic pressure as they operate predominantly in mature and stagnant markets (e.g. Seth & Randall, 2001). In order to face these specific challenges, retailing companies adapt strategies that allow them to gain economies of scale by offering highly customized solutions to their customers (see Table 1). These strategies are built upon the latest developments in information technology (IT) and are therefore called IT-assisted retail management strategies. The following chapter presents an overview to contemporary IT-based retail business models and frameworks that show how IT has created a new mandate for retail management. IT is defined here as the hardware and software that collects, transmits, processes and circulates pictorial, vocal, textual and numerical data/information (e.g., Hansen & Neumann, 2005; Chaffey, 2004).

Download Full-text

Does Effective Inventory Management Improve Profitability?

International Journal of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management ◽

10.4018/ijisscm.2016070102 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 9 (3) ◽

pp. 26-45 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hojung Shin ◽

Charles C. Wood ◽

Minjoon Jun

Keyword(s):

Inventory Management ◽

Manufacturing Industries ◽

Hierarchical Regression ◽

Inventory Level ◽

Regression Analyses ◽

Work In Process ◽

Long Run ◽

Operational Excellence ◽

Positive Effect ◽

Statistical Results

The present research investigates the effect of inventory performance on profitability. The objective is to find empirical evidence for the theory that operational excellence in inventory management improves profitability in the long run. To this end, the authors examine industry level longitudinal data (14 manufacturing industries at the SIC two-digit level) over the 1958-1999 period by employing a series of hierarchical regression analyses. The statistical results confirm that a lower inventory level measured as the industry inventory-to-sales ratio has a positive effect on industry profitability measured as the profit-to-sales ratio. This evidence is found significant in 9 out of the 14 U.S. manufacturing industries. This study also reveals that not all the inventories, categorized by stage of fabrication, equally contribute to improving industry profitability. For instance, the profitability of the primary and fabricated metal industries has benefited from reductions in finished goods inventories, whereas that of the petroleum and coal products industry has been affected mainly by declines in work-in-process inventories.

Download Full-text

Management strategies for spasmodic stocks: a Canadian Atlantic redfish fishery case study

Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences ◽

10.1139/cjfas-2019-0210 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 77 (4) ◽

pp. 684-702

Author(s):

Roberto Licandeo ◽

Daniel E. Duplisea ◽

Caroline Senay ◽

Julie R. Marentette ◽

Murdoch K. McAllister

Keyword(s):

Inventory Management ◽

Management Strategy ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Trawl Survey ◽

Eastern Canada ◽

Strategy Evaluation ◽

Management Procedures ◽

Harvest Control Rule ◽

Sebastes Mentella

There exist few recommendations for managing stocks with spasmodic recruitment, despite such stocks being not uncommon. Management procedures (MPs), developed for two species of redfish (Sebastes mentella and Sebastes fasciatus) in eastern Canada, are recommended for setting catch limits during periods of high and low abundance. A well-designed fishery-independent trawl survey is essential to provide advance warning of strong recruitment events and project future recruitment. Under an “inventory management” strategy, a more appropriate aim in spasmodic stocks may be to maximize the number of years with “good catches,” instead of maximizing total catches, as is traditionally considered in management strategy evaluation (MSE). Following a spasmodic recruitment event, an empirical harvest control rule based on larger fish delays the harvest of large cohorts by a few years, targets more commercially valuable fish sizes, and reduces the risk of growth overfishing. Capped MPs produced longer periods of large catches than uncapped MPs. MPs allowed for low harvests during periods of low abundance, thus avoiding unnecessary hardship in the industry. MPs evaluated here could be good candidates for other stocks with similar or less extreme recruitment variability.

Download Full-text