Essentials of Inventory Management

by Max Muller

The invaluable resource?is the answer book that practitioners and students rely on. It breaks down the job into easy concepts and concrete steps. The bar is set high for inventory control professionals—and well-ordered stock rooms and records are just the beginning. Beyond core tasks such as locating items, you’ve got to project future business needs, hold down costs, and fix supply chain problems. You need strategic and financial knowledge, and the skills to manage many moving parts. With examples, charts, review questions, formulas, and clear explanations, Essentials of Inventory Management will help Maintaining physical spaces and databases are only part of your responsibilities. From forecasting to troubleshooting to the fundamentals of finance, Essentials of Inventory Management gives you the tools to optimize efficiency—and drive profits.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 2003

About the author

MAX MULLER has been an executive for a wide range of product distributors. His seminars throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom have drawn more than 100,000 attendees. His books include The Manager’s Guide to HR (978-0-8144-1076-9).

Reviews

[Bob Wallner · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first twelve years of my career were spent in inventory control various positions. So even though I pivoted over a 15 years ago to something else, I maintain an interest in inventory trends. This textbook is narrated very well. The narrator is clear and articulate and presents a textbook in a format that is easily listenable.
The author covers from soup to nuts on inventory control from classification, procurement and cycle counting all the way to risks of storing and handling. Unfortunately, there is not much new in this from when I was managing inventory. The traditional thoughts of maximizing purchase discounts are still very prevalent. EOQ and ERP are still the primary means of setting order points and managing inventory control. The author does include some discussion on cross-docking and JIT and mentions kanban, but these discussions do not account for much more than a footnote in the scheme of things.
I was not expecting much out of this audiobook, but I think it is a good book for someone coming into a purchasing, warehousing or logistics position. I would not; however, recommend it for someone going into a progressive company that is trying to integrate lean supply chains. Unfortunately I have not found a book that would support those types of organizations at this point.

[Radhika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pocket book

A comprehensive book on Inventory management basics. It's for anyone who are direct ly or indirectly associated with inventory management to brush up on their basics as well good read for beginners.

[Juan Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

It starts slow for a professional who works in Supply Chain and it looks after deeper content regarding inventory. It picks up later. It's broad touching Supply Chain Management and Procurement as well.

[Logan Streondj · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book on inventory management with a storied approach explaining problem scenarios and solutions to them. Covers where to locate stock, how to organize it, work in progress, barcodes, RFID tags, and many other things. Certainly am interested in getting into inventory tracking now.

[Zack Hodges · Rating 4 out of 5]

solid

[Thomas Petersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good primer on general essentials of Inventory Management. Some of the examples are a little bit outdated but it's a solid book.