32. Inventory Management(cont……)Wal-Mart was able to reduce unproductive inventory by allowing stores to manage their own stocks, reducing pack sizes across many product categories, and timely price markdowns.Instead of cutting the inventory across the board, Wal-Mart made full use of its IT capabilities to make more inventories available in the case of items that customers wanted most, while reducing the overall inventory levels.
33. Inventory Management(cont……)Employees at the stores had the “Magic Wand,” a hand-held computer which was linked to in-store terminals through a radio frequency network.These helped them to keep track of the inventory in stores,deliveries, and backup merchandise in stock at the distribution centers.
34. CPFR• By the mid 1990s, Retail Link had emerged into an Internet-enabled SCM system whose functions were not confined to inventory management alone, but also covered collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR).• CPFR is defined as a business practice for business partners to share forecasts and results data through the Internet, in order to reduce inventory costs while at the same time, enhancing product availability across the supply chain