STOCK CONTROL


David Martin, national sales manager for vending and catering disposables packaging supplier, Herald, says the company has spent a lot of time analysing ways in which it can improve its service offering and growing its market share and is scrutinising the supply chain and more recently space. “Our way around rising costs and difficulties accessing products has been to focus on the supply chain. We’re in constant talks with suppliers to review and expand our product offering so that our customers have a full range of goods to choose from at differing price points, without sacrificing quality. “We’ve researched new suppliers and


expanded product lines to offer more choice and we’ve kept exacting standards to ensure quality while also competing on price. However, we’re always looking for ways to better our offering and last year we decided to concentrate on space. “Talking to various customers, it’s evident


that space is in short supply and nobody wants it taken up by stock when that space is so valuable. By expanding our own space, we can hold stock for our customers so that they can order in smaller quantities, if needs be, without the worry that they might not be able to access the same stock at short notice. “Ultimately, it’s about providing options


that will allow customers to keep costs down and maximise their profits. Having extra storage facilities means that we can hold more and our customers can use their own space effectively without tying it up with surplus supplies.


PUTTING DATA TO WORK SB Software managing director Simon Black contends that the long history of stock control in business is an indicator of how important it has always been to know what you have got and what you have not got. He argues that this is perhaps even more important today, when margins are tight and things move so fast.


underpin single walk, pre-packing and visit on demand - whatever suits the operator best. Everything is integrated. “It’s all about putting data to work and safely reducing stockholding – one client who already thought that they were “tight”, recently told us that they have now reduced even further to hold one month’s less ordering. That’s not a bad return on their investment. You can even increase the number of


SKUs that you carry without bloating your warehouse or overloading on your vans. “It’s all about taking data right at the


source, or as close as you can get, in real time or as timely as possible . Our Datakey is one device that adds value here, even across a machine park that combines units of varying specification and vintage. “Thereafter you will be doing more


“But now, we can take things further and in vending we are fortunate because of our ability to monitor almost everything, everywhere, live. “If you look at any warehouses where they


are using our Vendmanager Warehouse App staff can view data and images of stock items on their smart devices. The screens tell the user what to pick per order, what it looks like and where to find it.” The layout of the specific warehouse is mapped onto Vendmanager to streamline things as far as possible. The underlying data is coming straight from the machine park, to match actual requirements in the field. And Vendmanager can be used to


than just “cutting stock in the warehouse”. You can start synchronising ordering with what you will actually need - based on factual patterns of consumption. Smaller stock holding is a good start, but stock management to match your consumers actual desires is better still. “You can go beyond “traditional” stock control, to begin integrating stock holding/ordering into your active vending management across the whole business. It’s all about knowing as much as possible in ever greater detail/granularity against the criteria that actually map onto your business. As Simon put’s stock control has come so far for vending that it’s no longer just about recording that six boxes of chocolate bar X are in bay B32 of your warehouse.


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