Askari Inventory Management System (AIMS) is full-featured, professionally-developed, and futuristic yet sensible enterprise software solution designed to meet customer demand or service expectations with minimum inventory investment. It consists of nearly two-dozen tightly integrated modules designed to provide real-time information to the frontline staff, better serve the customers and provide management with accurate strategically critical information on all aspects of inventory to ensure that the software tools are available to manage and control inventory in the most cost-effective manner possible. It offers a unique, comprehensive and practical solution to address logistic and supply chain management issues from a strategic, operational and tactical perspective.
Depending on its existing automation level, implementation of AIMS in a public sector organization maintaining big inventories of parts and supplies is likely to result in a: • 20 to 50% reduction in inventory investment
• 25 to 40% reduction in procurement cycle time
• 40 to 60% improvement in stock visibility
• 30 to 50% improvement in demand satisfaction rate
• 25 to 40% reduction in downtime
• 60 to 90% reduction in out-of–stock rates
• 30 to 40% improvement in on time issuance of stores
• 30 to 40% decrease in paperwork
• 30 to 50% improvement in accuracy of inventoryrecords
• 30 to 50% increase in customer satisfaction levels
|
|
 In today's growingly competitive marketplace, organizations just cannot afford to carry excessive levels of inventory. Accordingly, an organization has two conflicting goals with inventory: minimize the amount of money tied up in stock and not be out of stock when it receives an order or demand. An integrated approach to inventory management is thus necessary to effectively balance the need to keep inventory low while simultaneously keeping the service level high.
According to a realistic estimate, a large segment (ranging between 30 to 50%) of inventory being carried by large state-owned organizations in almost every country of the world is either obsolete or rarely used. The underlying causes of this unneeded inventory include outdated and inefficient inventory management practices that often fail to meet customer demands, inadequate inventory control, overstated requirements, and weak financial accountability.
|
» Improve item availability at the lowest possible costs.
» Provide better service to customers
» Enable customers/demandees to raise demands.
» Provide electronic interaction between all stakeholders.
» Elimination of allotment of multiple stock numbers.
» Realistically establish and vigilantly stock control.
» Provide total visibility of stocks.
» Reduce procurement administrative lead-time.
» Integrate configuration management.
» Develop a comprehensive database.
| |
» Monitoring of progress on major overhaul activities.
» Exchange of data between store depots and production.
» Ability to effectively track various purchase orders.
» Effective monitoring of authorized budget.
» Keep track of repair & maintenance requisitions.
» Help obtain the right item from the right source.
» Reduce the number of errors.
» Substantially decrease the length of time.
» Provide the ability to perform consumption analysis.
» Maintain tight operating and auditing controls
|
Askari Inventory Management Software is composed of over two-dozen modules. They include:
• Parameterization
• Cataloguing/Patternization
• Warrant of Stores / Quota
• Forecast
• Demand Processing
• Issuance of Stores
• Survey of Stores
• Stock Management and Adjustment
• Refit/Project Management
• Repairable Management
• Provisioning / Procurement
• SRS Generation/Processing
º Indents
º Rate Running Contracts
º Local Purchase Orders
º Receipt Processing
• Inspection at Receipt Centre
• Stock Verification
• Fuel Management
• Writ Off / Disposal of BER Items
• Gate Pass and Central Issue Point
• Substitute Management
• MIS / Financial Reporting
• Configuration Management
• Equipment Profiling
• Budget Management
• Alterations and Additions
• Period Closing Activity
• Application Security
| |
 |
| • |
Cross-platform compatibility: The system has been developed using open source technologies, and supports all major, popular operating systems and databases. Unlike proprietary environment, an open system environment allows users to choose from a wider selection of computers that go well with their needs. It also offers increased interoperability, scalability and portability, permitting different systems to fit together, and software developed on one platform to run on another with minimal adaptation. |
| • | Three-tier inventory management application, separating the User Interface, Business Logic and Database |
| • | Integrated, innovative and user-friendly application with modular design, custom user definable fields, high security level of access restrictions, and flexibility in adjusting to changing needs. |
| • | Graphic user interface with facility to include image(s) of a part and/or main equipment for easy reference. |
| • | Barcode interface to simplify data entry and item recognition. |
| • | Comprehensive tracking of all work-flow processes associated with inventory management. The system monitors all core activities of the depot as per given time limit for each activity and generates prompts for concerned departments on pending actions. |
| • | Systematic allotment of a distinct stock number (item code) to each inventory item on the pattern of NATO Codification System by computer-aided scrutiny facilitates accurate and unique item identification and keeps a tight rein on allotment of multiple stock numbers to the same item, which helps control superfluous growth of inventory. |
| • | Cross referencing of stock numbers, part numbers, assemblies and systems. |
| • | ‘Cradle to grave' item traceability. |
| • | Serial number tracking which is especially helpful when returning a defective item to supplier or when verifying a returned item from customer. |
| • | Perpetual and real-time update of inventory at each transaction. |
| • | Categorization of items into consumable, quasi-permanent and permanent, repairable, etc. along with identification of recurring and non-recurring demands to facilitate sensible procurement. |
| • | Total visibility of stocks at all store locations as well as in-transit/inbound inventory with indication of committed, reserved stocks. |
| • | Reduced "Dead Stock" through systematic handling of excess, slow-moving, and obsolete inventory. |
| • | Stock control parameters like minimum and maximum stock, reorder levels, minimum order quantity (MOQ), etc are maintained for each inventory item to minimize stock outages and inhibit unnecessary buildup of stock. |
| • | Dramatic reduction in inventory investment through minimization of the related carrying and ordering costs as well as reduction in requisite storage due to reduced/optimal inventory level |
| • | Better delivery performance and slashed downtime due to improved item availability. |
| • | Availability of complete audit trail with virtually unlimited history of all transactions. |
| • | Effective tracking of items purchased and/or issued against a particular work order/project. |
| • | Automatic generation of stock replenishment requisitions as soon as an item touches re-order level along with the facility to create online requisitions, manually as well. Requisitions are reviewed and approved by multiple levels of management, electronically. Requisitions duly approved by competent authority are also electronically converted into a purchase order/Indent. |
| • | Ability to effectively release and track different types of purchase orders. |
| • | Full integration of purchasing with inventory control provides complete purchase-price variance reporting. |
| • | Around 200 easy-to-use inquiries and reports to better serve the customers as well as to monitor performance of inventory control and purchasing staff. |
| • | Facility to assess supplier performance, to find the low-cost supplier, and to identify supplier quality and on-time delivery problems. |
|
|
| • | Pricing unit of measure with purchase to stock unit of measure. |
| • |
Information pertaining to purchase orders or indents being processed for release, purchase requisitions pending with different levels of management, open purchase orders, expected receipts, & history - by supplier or purchase order or item along with the current status of various budget heads allocated for different types of stores indicating budget allocation, up-to-date commitments as well as actual expenditures is instantly available upon demand. |
| • | Multiple currency support with user-defined exchange rates. |
| • | Auto-generation of all the essential documents related to inventory management such as stock replenishment requisitions, local purchase requisitions, various types of purchase orders, comparative statements of tenders, issue and adjustment vouchers, CRV(Certified Receipt Voucher), bill forwarding letters, reminders and host of other documents. |
| • | Cycle counting supports numerous methods to select items to count, ABC classification, store group and/or class, warehouse/stock locations, random, zero/negative on-hand, etc. . |
| • | Effective tracking of repair & maintenance requisitions. |
| • | Customers have the facility to submit demands electronically and subsequently browse their status, which, in turn, stamps out the need of sending customer's staff to the depot for lodging demand or seeking out its status. |
| • | Facility to perform location-wise, equipment-wise, command/region-wise class/group-wise consumption analysis of stores/spares on monthly and/or quarterly basis. |
| • | Effective procedure to deal with/write-off BER (Beyond Economical Repair) items. |
| • | Sharing of isolated events to extract efficiencies such as opportunities for combining requirement for procurement to take advantage of discounts. |
| • | Tracks and reports on user-defined stores and bins. |
| • | Availability of means to project the demand for an item and estimate a new order point and order quantity. |
| • |
Supports different settings at item level such as item type (piece part, assembly, sub-assembly, main equipment), insurance item, item class, item group (commodity code), and more, which assists in inventory categorizing and reporting. |
| • | Supports data entry in multiple windows at the same time, which allows simultaneous processing of transactions. |
| • | ABC analysis allows categorization of inventory items according to their overall performance or value. |
| • | Provides inventory procurement and usage history complete with graphs. |
| • | Real-time Status Report provides immediate status of current balance, inventory value, period-to-date budgetary commitments and actual expenditure, etc. |
| • | Allows multiple suppliers for the same inventory item. |
| • | Observations record provides pertinent information on each inventory item/transaction. |
| • | Displays online issue, receipt and procurement history information for existing inventory items. |
| • | Inventory items have an Active / Inactive status indicator for each inventory item. |
| • | Extensive controls are built into the system to inhibit errors during transaction processing. |
| • | Automation of clerical and repetitive functions as well as routine decision-making processes such as when to order items those have fallen below the reorder level. |
| • | Ample reduction in paperwork. |
| • | Facility to manage high-value, fast-moving, slow moving as well as attractive items, conveniently, efficiently and effectively. |
| • | Online availability of “where used” information |
| • | Facility to perform online top-down breakdown to lowest assembly or piece part |
| • | Identification and effective management of substitutes |
| • | Complete statistical analysis of financial and physical inventory data |
|
What is AIMS