Inventory Management System Essay

He suggests, though, that for the endurance of your business and the future of your applications as a whole, you go with something like PHP that has a good solid community and is in constant development to make it and its features better. The flexibility that PHP offers also means that the possibility for someone to write nasty code that works (for now) goes up greatly. * Adobe Dreamweaver [Heaton (1998)] According to Heaton (1998), he states that,â€Å"I personally recommend Dreamweaver to both learners and seasoned experts’ think Adobe can make is more accessible to people by having various versions of it much like Elements is a poor man’s Photoshop, there should be a cut down version of DW. So in my opinion  no, it is not just an overpriced text editor. Dreamweaver is a powerful and highly applicable tool that every designer should be able to own. * Inventory [Donald Reimer (1989)] According to Donald Reimer (1989), â€Å"Today, maintaining the right inventory levels is a tough challenge. If not properly managed, your inventory can result in a significant expense. Looking over your shoulder is the lender who is concerned about the cost of carrying too much inventory- which can affect profitability. † * Inventory System [Michael Bernacchi (2002)] According to an author Michael Bernacchi (2002),an inventory systems maintain information about activities within firms that ensure the delivery of products to customers. The subsystems that perform these functions include sales, manufacturing, warehousing, ordering, and receiving. In different firms the activities associated with each of these areas may not be strictly contained within separate subsystems, but these functions must be performed in sequence in order to have a well-run inventory control system. According to Godwin Udo (1993), given such developments, it is little wonder that business experts commonly cite inventory management as a vital element that can spell the difference between success and failure in today’s keenly competitive business world. Writing in production and inventory Management Journal, Godwin Udo described telecommunications technology as a critical organizational asset that can help a company realize important competitive gains in the area of inventory management. He noted that companies that make good use of this technology are far better equipped to succeed than those who rely on outdated or unwieldy methods of inventory control. According to Dennis Eskow (1990), automation can dramatically impact all phases of inventory management, including counting and monitoring of inventory items; recording and retrieval of item storage location; recording changes to inventory; and anticipating inventory needs, including inventory handling requirements. This is true even of stand-alone systems that are not integrated with other areas of the business, but many analysts indicate that productivity and hence profitability gains that are garnered through use of automated systems can be increased even more when a business integrates its inventory control systems with other systems such as accounting and sales to better control inventory levels. As Dennis Eskow noted in PC Week, business executives are â€Å"increasingly integrating financial data, such as accounts receivable, with sales information that includes customer histories, the goal: to control inventory quarter to quarter, so it doesn’t come back to bite the bottom line. Key components of an integrated system are general ledger, electronic data interchange, database connectivity, and connections to a range of vertical business applications. † In the latter part of the 1990’s, may businesses invested heavily in integrated order and inventory systems designed to keep inventories at a minimum and replenish stock quickly. But business owners have a variety of system integration options from which to choose, based on their needs and financial liquidity. At the same time that these integrated systems have increased in popularity, business observers have suggested that â€Å"stand-alone† systems are falling into disfavor. A 1996 study by the international Mass Retail Association, for example, concluded that stand alone Warehouse Management System Packages acquired to perform individual functions will soon become obsolete because they do not integrate well with other systems. Another development of which small business vendors should be aware is a recent trend wherein powerful retailers ask their suppliers to implement vendor-managed inventory systems; these arrangements place the responsibility for inventory management squarely on the shoulders of the vendors. Under such an agreement, the vendors obtain warehouse or point of sale information from the retailer and use that information to make inventory restocking decisions. The move toward automation in inventory management naturally has moved into the warehouse as well, citing various warehousing experts, Sarah Bergin contended in transportation and distribution magazine that â€Å"the key to getting productivity gains from inventory management is placing real-time processing in the ware house uses combinations of hardware including material handling and data collection technologies, but according to these executive, the intelligent part of the system is sophisticated software which automates and controls all aspects of warehouse operations. Another important component of good inventory management is creation and maintenance of a sensible, effective warehousing design. A well-organized, user-friendly warehouse layout can be of enormous benefit to small business owners, especially if they are involved in processing large colymes of goods and materials. Conversely, an inefficient warehouse system can cost businesses dearly in terms of efficiency, custom er service, and ultimately profitability. Transportation and distribution magazine cited several steps that businesses utilizing warehouse storage systems can take to help ensure that they get the most out of their facilities.