A New Era in Inventory Management
Mr. Charles Bodenstab spent more than 30 years in various executive positions at major corporations before he acquired the failing Battery and Tire Warehouse in St.Paul, Minnesota. In just one year, by implementing strong inventory control and cash management programs, he turned the company profitable, where it remained until he sold it very favorably ten years later. The concepts and technology he developed during his early corporate days, and their practical refinement for the distributor, are the basis for his book.
The first section of the book deals with a variety of Inventory Management tools that are widely misused and rules that are routinely violated by many distributors. Their correction can offer some very quick, high-payoff opportunities - it did at Battery and Tire Warehouse.
The second section of the book develops, step by step, a series of concepts and techniques that, when brought together in a computer software system, becomes one of the most powerful, easy-to-use inventory replenishment systems in the country today. The system stresses simplicity in use, though not particularly in its internal methodology.
With Mr. Bodenstab's system, the user can build a replenishment order on a particular vendor and have a purchase order in the vendor's hands within 15 minutes. Yet this order will have tracked trends, seasonality, and aberrant demand movements; comprehended palletizing requirements, minimum order amounts, and price breaks; and allowed for easy, rapid human intervention to introduce overrides in areas known only to the user.
Mars was deveoped in consultation with Mr Bodenstab. Companies using this system have routinely demonstrated a quantum improvement in both inventory turns and order fill rates, with reduced order preparation time as a final bonus. Through this system, NBDS offers the distributor a win-win-win opportunity!
