Ram Products ramps up their inventory processes with Netstock

Ram Products have a unique go-to-market strategy. They operate a fleet of mobile warehouses that are operated by territory managers who travel from customer to customer providing same-day services. They drive to the customer, take and fulfill orders, and move on to the next stop.

They are a SAP B1 ERP customer and used their ERP data to manage their inventory with an inventory optimization product. They weren’t happy with the level of customer service from their inventory optimization provider and felt that their expectations were not being met.

Ram Products has a level of complexity with its operational model. They run their distribution warehouse using predictive inventory, i.e., forecasting and ordering based on those forecasts.

“Our trucks refill as we sell. If we have 1000 items on a truck and sell 100, we immediately refill with another 100.

The problem is when you view that on a predictive basis; if we are only selling 100 per month, we don’t need to send any more for another 10 months. So, we almost have to ignore the inventory on the truck when we’re determining what we need to have in our distribution warehouse to replenish with. However, we still need to account for the sales off the truck. Our previous solution provider attempted to meet our requirements, but we never fully trusted their attempts“, James. Shotts, VP of Operations, Ram Products. James promptly sought an alternative solution.

Ram Products have 40,000 SKU’s with multiple buyers. Their buyers are producing an enormous amount of purchase orders every day, so having a dashboard to highlight critical metrics helps them focus their time more efficiently.

“We have found the online chat to be super helpful, and we use this virtually daily. Sometimes we may have a unique item that we need to manage slightly differently. We have a quick chat with a skilled Netstock consultant, and we can quickly move forward with the recommended suggestions. This gives us great comfort and trust in the solution and the company when we have access to competent and helpful people.”

Another key area of improvement has been how Ram Products have reduced their inventory over their quiet months from November through to January. Knowing what their inventory value is, they used to set a goal for the end of the year on what they needed to reduce it by. The buyers then had the job of reducing the inventory over the year. “Using Netstock, we merely change our fill rate percentages and reduce those by around 20% per classification. By adhering to the Netstock order recommendations, we saw our inventory come down. In December, we increase those rates again as we head towards the ‘business as usual’ season from January.”

“Our onboarding process has been excellent every step of the way. Netstock is 100% transparent in everything they do”.

Netstock goes the extra mile:

• Teaching us how the forecast engine and algorithms work
• Helping us to create better forecasts
• Nurturing us with ongoing insights about inventory management theory and best practices