ABC Inventory Control System Based on an Office Automation Tool

Abstract

Inventory management concerns most companies, whatever their size and the sector of their activity. This concern is mainly due to avoiding delays in deliveries. Therefore, inventories must be well managed with an automated system to define the goods to be ordered. The ABC inventory classification method comes from the Pareto rule. This is used to segment and organize products in a warehouse based on unit cost, inventory value, turnover, and value. In this work, an inventory control system is carried out to adequately determine the stock of merchandise for a distributor of automotive parts using an office automation tool. An application-type methodology was modified. The techniques used were data collection in situ, information classification, and processing through functions. The application of this method is based on an office automation tool focused on spreadsheets that allow creating data tables and performing operations in an orderly manner for the ABC classification method. The inventory control system is managed through a user interface made up of hyperlinks in the form of buttons. In the results, the segmentation of products was obtained according to the established criteria, unit cost, and the annual volume demanded. Where the items with rotation A reach 20% of the inventories, but they are the ones that experience the most rotation and, therefore, have a strategic importance, since they generate 80% of the income, being a priority to avoid out of stock. Items with turnover B represent 22% of inventories and are renewed less quickly. The set of articles with rotation C, represents 58% of the stored references; however, they are the least demanded by customers. With the application of the ABC inventory system, the correct classification and distribution of merchandise in the warehouse was modified, rationally managing its inventories, and identifying those with the highest demand, therefore, higher turnover.