Question

what do you understand by
a) inventory management
b) materials management
c) inventory control

Answer 1

a) Inventory management- is the complete end to end process of supervising the goods that are coming from the warehouses and are finally sent to the end customer, so any bottlenecks or process gaps have to found out by and should be removed from inventory management. It includes both the final goods that are to be delivered to the customer and the pieces or raw materials required to manufacture them and hence is known as a systematic planned manner of managing inventory or stocks.

b) Materials management- It is the process of ensuring that all supplies in and out of the organisation should be in place i.e. it should be in sync with the expectations so that there is no shortage of goods to any system and without any impediments the process should continue keeping in mind that whenever is required the correct material is present at the right place.

c) Inventory control- This process includes the supervision in the sense that there is only right amount of material available at any time so that it could be supplied to the right place and also the cost for keeping it is also not very high. The outcome of an effective inventory control is that the shortages are never there and the cost is also in control.