How Does A Buckles-Smith Vendor Managed Inventory Service Work?
May 18, 2017
Minimize your costs with Buckles-Smith’s VMI
Buckles-Smith Vendor-Managed Inventory Service (VMI) is a customized and “living” business model in which our customers provide electrical purchasing history information to us and Buckles-Smith takes full responsibility for maintaining an agreed upon inventory level, ready for consumption, usually at our customer’s storeroom and/or at remote workstations. We can do this for machine building and/or maintenance applications.
VMI makes it less likely that a customer will unintentionally find themselves out of regularly consumed items while reducing inventory overages in the supply chain. Buckles-Smith representatives will automatically replenish the inventory, based on the agreed MIN/MAX levels.
Our customers benefit from reduced risk, better staff knowledge and a significant reduction in cost of labor and ordering. Once the items and inventory levels are established, the customer provides a single “Blanket Purchase Order” for the VMI to Buckles-Smith for monthly invoicing in an itemized format as opposed to needing to generate a new PO for every order. With an auto-replenishment system, the customer doesn’t need to perform frequent inventory counts and they won’t find themselves with a shortage of items, an overstock of unnecessary parts or those that are used infrequently.
Auto-Replenishment means that a Buckles-Smith Representative will go onsite at the customer’s location where the inventory is stored, on a pre-determined schedule, and scan items that have been consumed to a level below the maximum level agreed upon. This is usually done by using a “Two Bin” system. When one bin is empty, it is set aside by our customer and consumption begins from the second bin. Our representative will scan the empty bin which places an order to Buckles-Smith to replenish the item to its maximum level. The empty bin is brought back to our warehouse, refilled and returned to the customer’s storeroom. If the other bin is empty, it is rotated with the full one and the process repeats.
We understand that item levels and items may change over time. We are flexible enough to accommodate any adjustments necessary. Buckles-Smith’s goal is to greatly reduce the costs, labor and time associated with your inventory so that you can focus on core competency, customer satisfaction and productivity.
Learn more about how Buckles-Smith VMI can benefit you and your company:
Located throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, Buckles-Smith helps customers improve the management of their supply chain by customizing a solution to meet customer specific needs.