Whether we like it or not, every company on the planet with any significant supply chain operation has an inventory reconciliation problem. It doesn’t matter if you are a retailer, manufacturer or logistics service provider, or if you have the latest and greatest warehouse management system. The fact is, if humans have to physically touch or scan inventory in the put away, inventory check or pick process, then errors will occur. The only debate will be the size and scale of the problem.

I talk to many organizations and they all deal with this problem. As you can imagine, there is a broad array of approaches taken and process maturity across companies. Some never check, some shutdown operations to do a full check, and others have a robust approach to cycle counting. In the best case scenario, you have a process that gets you into the 95% to 99% confidence level of inventory. Why not 100%? Just to reiterate, you may have the best warehouse staff on the planet, but if they are following manual repetitive tasks, errors will unfortunately occur.

Read here “why should you care?”