GMS 401 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Operations Management, Barcode, Carrying Cost

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Global Management Studies
• Course: GMS 401
• Professor: Dror Hermel

Document Summary

Outline: global company profile: amazon. com, the importance of inventory, managing inventory, probabilistic models and safety stock, single-period model, fixed-period (p) systems. Amazon. com: amazon. com started as a virtual retailer no inventory, no warehouses, no overhead; just computers taking orders to be filled by others, growth has forced amazon. com to become a world leader in warehousing and inventory management. The global company profile description of the amazon. com order filling process is a nice one that includes some good detail. Note, in particular, step 3, which represents a pick-to-light system. The lights direct workers to the exact bins to pick the proper items, doubling the picking speed while simultaneously eliminating almost all human errors stemming from matching. Throughout the system, computers, bar codes, and conveyor belts help to route products automatically to the appropriate boxes, which end up at the customers" doorstep within about three days. The objective of inventory management is to strike a balance between inventory investment and customer service.