Know what's coming before it arrives with advance ship notices

To really manage inventory, you need visibility into your inbound shipments before products reach your receiving dock. Advance ship notices are just the ticket.

By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 7/26/2006

For many, inventory visibility means knowing what you have inside the four walls of your distribution center. That’s made possible by a warehouse management system (WMS) and a real-time data collection system using bar codes, voice recognition and RFID.

But in today’s world, visibility inside the four walls is just the table stakes that gets you in the game, says Bruce Strahan, president and CEO of The Progress Group (770-804-9920). If you’ve already taken the fat out of the inventory levels inside the four walls of a facility, Strahan says, “inventory visibility starts with an advance ship notice (ASN) before the inventory hits your facility.”

There are a number of benefits to getting an ASN from suppliers.

For one, it allows you to commit to future orders using inbound inventory you know will be in your facility before the order ship date.

It also allows you to avoid holding items in your facility that you know are available for immediate shipment from your suppliers.

Finally, having visibility into inbound inventory makes your facility more efficient. Knowing what’s coming in allows you to: pre-slot items before they arrive, plan cross-dock processes and replenish pick faces directly from the dock rather than travel to a reserve storage area.

Unfortunately, says Strahan, too few companies are taking advantage of ASNs. “In an age of opposing pressures to reduce inventory and improve fill rates, we really need to work on this component of inventory visibility,” he says.