Inventory and Purchasing in San Jose

Located in or near the San Fransisco Bay area? Want to know more about Eclipse inventory or purchasing? If you’re a member of the Eclipse Users Group, you can join us Sept. 21 for an all-day workshop on Purchasing, or Sept. 22 for an all-day workshop on Inventory Control. We’re also conducting shorter, online classes during the month of September, including Report Writer, TCL and Dictionaries. To learn more or sign-up, visit www.eclipseuser.com.

Where Oh Where is Zerion Now?

Whenever we can, we use this space to welcome and highlight new customer relationships. As much as we love doing that, we thought it was time to mix it up! Instead, we’re going to tell you a little about what happened in the life of Zerion last month, and anything exciting we have coming up this month:

• We enjoy making distributors more efficient, and we recently achieved that for two clients with custom reports. One is mentioned in our feature story this month, and the other was the customization of product sales comparison report. Our client wanted to include running by multiple select codes and we made some manipulations to how the date ranges could work. The result drastically reduced how long it takes them to prep the report.
• Also this month, Tony made a quick but in-depth on-site visit to an Electrical distributor where he worked to improve their inventory turns with purchasing consulting.
• August is bringing us a most-hands-on-deck inventory that we’re quite excited about because of its perfectly tropical locale. But alas, we won’t be enjoying the beach, but rather staring at racks and wires in our client’s warehouse, as we’re providing counters for their first physical inventory.
• We’ll also spend some time in the Midwest to do “train the trainer” sessions and consulting for a new installation of Eclipse.
• Two of our consultants will head to Alabama to teach a Super User 101 and 102 class for the Eclipse Users Group. (There are still spots available! Visit eclipseuser.com to register.)
• We’ll also spend time “off the road” to provide remote services, including system performance overhauls for several customers, multiple forms changes and several custom reports.

We hope to see you in our travels soon!

UFO Webinars and Training in Alabama

July is a time for barbecues, beaches and … training? But, of course! Zerion consultants will be teaching online classes for the Eclipse Users Group this month in Budgeting, Balancing G/L Inventory, and Creating New Views (both in Eterm and Solar). Also, Alabamans should get ready for some training in August. The UFO is offering an on-site SuperUser 101 class on August 10, and a SuperUser 102 class on August 11, both in Birmingham. To learn more or to sign up for any of these classes, visit eclipseuser.com.

Cycle Your Way to a Healthy Warehouse

We all know that exercise is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. And, we know that cycling is a great form of exercise that can improve cardiovascular health and physical condition. But, did you know that cycling can also be healthy for your warehouse?

In an article on the Distribution Team’s web site, titled Cycle Counting: Penicillin for Distributors, Scott Stratman outlines why he believes that cycle counting is like antibiotic medicine for your warehouse. (You can download the complete article here.)

We’re going to expand on his points specifically for Eclipse users, and also take his analogy one step further. We agree that cycle counting can be an effective cure for an ailing, inefficient warehouse; but, it should also be thought of as an ongoing necessity to running a healthy, cost-effective operation … much like exercising (or cycling) regularly is to having a healthy body.

Scott’s article starts out by noting the average operational cost of a correctly processed order. He estimates that to be somewhere between $35 and $45 each. That’s the cost of doing business, right? Right. But, what happens if you’re absorbing that cost not once, but twice; or, even three times. We see it all of the time when we’re consulting with Eclipse users; and, Scott sums up the result perfectly: “Errors cost distributors nightmares in terms of poor customer service, unpaid receivables, lack of trust in the computer system data and, most of all, hard cash.”

In Eclipse, it can be a never-ending déjà vu (like we mentioned last month). Your warehouse team keeps trying to pull the same item multiple times from the same ticket, and they don’t even realize it. That’s because in Eclipse, after you try to pull an order and backorder it, the ticket prints again. But, often times, someone else gets the ticket and the cycle repeats itself.

So, how do you avoid all of this repetitious, error-iffic nonsense? Surprise, surprise: go cycling! When you cycle count, you’re basically checking up on your inventory on a regular basis, so what Eclipse says you have in stock is actually what’s in the warehouse. This way, you won’t be trying to ship product that doesn’t exist; and, quite possibly, items will actually be in their proper places most of the time. Cycle counting also eliminates the need for you and your team to slug through a stressful and difficult annual physical inventory.

Scott provides several steps to executing the cycle counting process, which should be done each day. Here are his suggested steps, along with some specific Eclipse menu items that we’ve added:

1. Stop the paper flow before you count.
2. Find someone reliable to count.
3. Get a cycle count sheet from your system. In Eclipse, you go to Cycle Count Queue: Generate Print, Generate Control File, Print Count Sheets.
4. Count from sheet to shelf, starting with primary locations and moving to secondary and overflow locations.
5. If desired, use cycle counting as an opportunity to restock.
6. Note discrepancies between the actual stock and the system. In Eclipse, you can use the Count Variance Report for this.
7. Adjust the system to reflect actual stock. Eventually, you shouldn’t have any discrepancies. In Eclipse, you use Update Physical Onhand to do this.

Scott recommends you count each item at least quarterly. By taking the number of days you have to count in a year and dividing it by four, you’ll come up with a number for your daily count.

From an Eclipse perspective, we agree with Scott’s suggestions; but, they apply mostly to paper warehouses (vs. RF). For RF, the cycle count is even simpler. For example, you can skip step 1 because the system can count in real time. It will also track additional information, such as improper moves and negative items.

Eclipse cycle counting works in two primary ways. It tracks what is short shipped through the warehouse.  So, if you ship 10 but needed to pull 12, then the item goes to a count. Thus, you can count the short picks. You can also manually generate a row or counts by priceline. Or, you can do them at random via the Generate Random Counts option. Cycle counting also forces users to count items when they have been overcommitted.  If an item is unavailable at the time the ticket is invoiced or printed, this item will go into the cycle count queue to be counted.

Because Eclipse has built-in cycle counting functionality, it’s very straightforward and inexpensive for you to begin these steps. Typically, your location/s should only require a few system tweaks and some minimal training. For the benefits you’ll see from cycle counting, this minor investment can pay for itself in a matter of days. If you started cycling for exercise, it would take much longer than that to see results! Yet, you might be shocked to find out how many distributors don’t practice this key to overall warehouse health.

Zerion Helps Manufacturer Ship Over 200% More Orders

We recently implemented SAP Business One for Ganesh Mills, a manufacturer of towels and linens in Orlando, Florida. Watch this short video to hear about their experience and how the changes in inventory management are allowing them to ship up to 230% more orders per day.

Eclipse Tip: Tracking Inventory Adjustments

If you ever notice inventory adjustment comments being too vague, or incorrect (in the inventory adjustment register); or, if you’re allowed to type anything in the Header Comment field of an adjustment, here’s a tip for you. There are two control files that can increase your tracking on inventory adjustments. From Control File Maintenance, you can turn on Validate Inventory Adjustment Comments (change to “Yes”), and set up Valid Inventory Adjustment Comments. Once you do this, all adjustments will have to have a specific reason in order to be created. Also, note that you can tie each adjustment comment to a specific GL account.