Warehouse Management Problem and a KPI Approach: a Case Study

Warehouse and inventory management is a recurring issue in many of the different supply chains in diverse industries, where the constant changes in the markets have a direct impact on the management of warehouses and inventories, either generating over-stocks or shortages. This paper presents a case study on warehouse and inventory management control. The company under study was having problems in this area, where over-stocks were generated frequently, leading to various incidents, such as having to store finished and packaged product in unsuitable places, with the associated risk of deterioration. To deal with this problem, control tools based on the KPI (Key Performance Indicator) concept were developed. To this end, the corresponding problem and the information management process within the Supply Chain department had to be analyzed. In this case, it was observed that the databases were not synchronized, therefore strategies were proposed to systematize the collection and updating of data. In addition, to summarize the information, we proceeded to the implementation of an interactive form that facilitates the visualization and interpretation of the evolution of the process, and to be able to apply an efficient control on it, and thus to propose corrective actions supported by evidence.