Inventory management has become a world of exactitude and high profit, as timely and precise information instantly appears wherever needed, in every organization, no matter what size. It is frequently the case that warehoused items are small, inexpensive, and sold in single units, and this makes them extremely difficult to track. At the same time, both large and small warehouses are now expected to provide record of the count of every single item accurately, and to account for the expense of these items at all times. When a warehouse serves a large hospital or factory, it can expect to deliver small packages here and there everyday, and it is easy for warehouse staffers to think of these small deliveries as meaningless. This attitude encourages carelessness, and that leads to inaccuracy.
Many hospitals and assembly plants now lock each separate item in secure shelving spaces, so that there is a record of each time the secured space is opened. More important than this expensive measure is the attitude of the staff: when nurses know that logging in each bandaid only takes a second or two, and that each bandaid matters in the budget, the job of maintain the inventory on those bandaids becomes much easier to enforce.
Warehouse staffers need to learn the importance of exact counts in their work before they begin to fill orders, and this means they need to be involved with and confident in the digital software that will record their work. Direct and immediate feedback about the materials involved has to be available to the clerks of a warehouse. A software package like DataQlick will provide that fast and accurate feedback, and encourage accurate counts and records in the system with its easy-to-use features. The job of the inventory manager in these situations is not one of enforcement, but of education; managers must demonstrate that small and inexpensive items are tracked just as carefully as large and expensive ones, and they must show the staff that with the right kind of inventory software, accuracy is not difficult to achieve.
