Procedures Inventory management is different at every company. It doesn't matter the size of the company or the industry the company is in they will all have different procedures to follow for every step of inventory management. When talking about the five-component framework procedures are defined as: the procedures that the four other components use. So this refers to the procedures for the hardware, software, data, and people. Procedures is on the human side of the diagram and it is categorized under instructions. When discussing inventory management our team found that every place has their own procedures for these components and it mainly depends on the management. received quantity shipped Wholesaler DC quantity Supplier Stores Available Physical Quantity recorded recorded received shipped quantity quantity Demand order Physical flow Information flow Q Information System inventory We went to many different companies in many different industries. Some of the companies that have not been mentioned are Gap, Trader Joe's, Giovanni's, Original Roadhouse Grill, Bill's Country Kitchen, and Bing Crosby's. We asked the same questions to these places concerning their procedures with inventory management. Some of the questions that were about procedures would be: What type of inventory system does your company use? How does your company project future inventory? How many people does it take to do inventory? How many hours does it take to do inventory? Do vendors help? We recorded the companies' answers to these questions and compared them to other companies. We noticed a wide range of different procedures when it comes to inventory control. The different procedures can vary in many ways depending on the products, the size, and the management choices of the company. Some of the variables in inventory management would be: frequency, workers, labor hours, teams, vendor involvement, and outside inventory consultants. Frequency would be how often an inventory count is being conducted. Workers refers to how many workers does it take to do an inventory count, and how many labor hours does it take to complete the inventory. If a company takes inventory once a week and it takes twelve employees 4 hours to complete an inventory count, then inventory management can be costly to the company. Vendor involvement is when the vendor helps keep track of inventory levels and helps manage the inventory. An example of vendor involvement would be Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart does not do inventory involving their own employees and their own labor hours. If vendors want to be on the shelves at Wal-Mart then they keep track of their own inventory and send shipments when needed to keep inventory stocked. Wal-Mart is a rare example of vendor involvement because the inventory management relies all on the vendors. In other retail stores this is not the case because the stores do not have the power and control that Wal-Mart has on their vendors. Last, there are outside consultants which would have the responsibility of coming in and helping a business with their inventory management, but having nothing to do with the company and the inventory. After interviewing many different companies in different industries we found some interesting results on the procedures used in inventory management. Bing Crosby's, Original Roadhouse Grill, Giovanni's, and Bill's Country Kitchen were all similar because they are in the restaurant industry. Being that you have to keep the food fresh they all did a manual inventory once a week with one to two employees and it takes on average one to two hours, with an acceptance to Bill's Country Kitchen which does inventory count twice a week. All these places did their inventory management all on their own with no help from their vendors. We found that all the other companies that were interviewed had a greater variance in terms of their procedures. Best Buy being a large corporation retail store they use a web-based inventory control system called, Receiving Service System (RSS). The inventory count is updated with every purchase or incoming order electronically, and reflected every business hour (8 times per day). Best Buy also does a manual inventory count to make sure their numbers correspond with the online inventory numbers. They perform this inventory count once a day that involves twelve employees and takes about two to three hours to complete. The vendors of Best Buy do help with the inventory management. They are able to oversee current and future ordering history and help to forecast the needs of Best Buy. Another store we interviewed was GAP, and their procedures vary from the above companies as well. GAP uses Radio Frequency Identity, RFID, which is applied to the product for the purpose of identification and tracking the products using radio waves. They also use an LRT gun which scans in and out the products. Once every six months GAP uses WIS vendor inventory, which is a team usually about 20 people, that comes to the store to take inventory with one employee and one manager. This process which happens twice a year takes about 9 hours when doing full inventory check. WIS helps GAP count all their inventory and then the Manager and employees recount after inventory is taken to double check numbers. As you can see these results are only from a handful of companies we interviewed and all of their procedures varied for company to company. Inventory management can be extremely costly depending on the size of the company and the procedures the company implements.