Pipeline Inventory

TermiKnowledge - Supply Chain, Procurement and Inventory Terminologies
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Pipeline Inventory, also known as logistics inventory or shipping inventory, is inventory which passes through a commercial distribution system while either being held for storage for future sale at an auction point or being transferred to other facilities for shipment. With pipeline inventory, businesses now have even more control over where and how their goods are sold while also having some control over the volume and quality of their existing inventory. This gives them much greater flexibility in pricing their goods while also having a greater opportunity to make the most of any deals they can clinch with suppliers. And all this can be achieved with a much smaller footprint thanks to improved platform flexibility.

So how do you know if your company's pipeline inventory is running smoothly? It's all about looking at how the system is working. If you've got excellent control over your production lines, you're not going to need to look beyond the locations of your receiving dock locations to see if you're actually picking up the products which are passing through your warehouses. But if you're finding that you're making too many back-room deliveries or that you're running into supply chain problems due to poor control of your shipping routes and back-room stock levels, then that's when you'll need to take a closer look at your inventory tracking and warehousing. Once you know what's happening with your receiving and warehouse locations, it will be easier to see how you can improve both operations and efficiency.

If you want to reduce the amount of time and money spent on back-room deliveries and excess inventory than you need to look at using large volumes of small-quantity raw materials and supplies which can be delivered as rapidly as possible. This is where large-volume anticipation inventory becomes extremely advantageous as it helps to meet demand in the shortest space of time by supplying goods which are ready to go just when customers need them. This sort of anticipation inventory doesn't just cut costs, it also increases profits as goods are delivered at the fastest pace.

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