A MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION FRAMEWORK FOR INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

Inventory management is a process / practice that every company undertakes. Most companies fail to apply a comprehensive set of criteria to rank their products / items. The criteria are too few or subjective in nature. Inventory is required to stay in business and meet customer needs. If it is not done right it causes deterioration in customer service and could lead to damages to both customer and supplier relations and eventually cause business breakdown. A simple multi-criteria driven holistic framework developed by industry input is critical to the success of inventory management. An inventory management framework using FIVE main-criteria categories (revenue, customer service, profitability, growth, risk), 21 (between 3 and 6 in each category) metrics and 4 ranks (A, B, C, D) is presented in this paper to assist companies with their inventory management process. The framework that is presented has been developed through literature review, surveys, interviews and focus groups with several industry owners, inventory managers and business managers