My Love Letter to Inventory Transactions

Once upon a time I worked as a Consigned Inventory Analyst for GE Aircraft Engines at their Evendale, Ohio plant. I was hired to track inventory that GE held on consignment at various sub-contractors throughout the aircraft engine industry.

I started by reviewing the inventory accounts that showed the $ ‘on hand’ at each of the sub-contractors. It was aircraft stuff, so none of it was cheap. I could see the order information that moved inventory in and out, the dates, units, dollars, etc. 

One vendor, Northrup Grumman, handled 8 feet tall thrust reversers worth six figures each. They kept losing inventory, every year, which showed up as a write off. With literally millions of dollars on the line I thought it would be a good idea to try and solve the mystery.

A quick plane ride and tour of Northrup Grumman’s facility resulted in my 30+ year fascination with inventory transactions. 

In 1989, GE and Northrup Grumman had the best talent and probably the best computer systems.  Yet, despite all the talent and systems surrounding this costly problem it was the lowly inventory transaction that actually solved the problem. 

Now, all I had to do was learn FoxPro 1.0 to design and create a set of inventory transactions for receipt, storage, processing, completion, and shipment. Once that was complete, I got back on the plane and installed the solution on the subcontractor’s production floor PC using a 3 ½’ floppy drive.

After one month of use, the lost inventory disappeared. Month after month they got the same results. No more disappearing, 8 foot tall, six figure each, inventory. I got a management award ($), a nifty faux leather portfolio with my picture and a description of the solution, and a promotion.

It became obvious to me that inventory transactions are the foundation of supply chain. The who, what, where, when, and why is the story of every supply chain. If you don’t control the small things, they control you. If you don’t capture, validate, and control the data of your inventory at the moment it is being touched or transformed you are running blind.

Know What’s In The Box is my love letter to inventory transactions. They exist in every part of your supply chain. Many are incomplete, lacking data, unconfirmed, or missing entirely. Written on a piece of paper, stored in a filing cabinet, and unavailable for any further use. Let’s talk about your inventory transactions and, together, unleash their full potential.

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