We are a research institute with approximately 300 employees and are looking for an easy-to-use inventory management program.
Various departments store a wide variety of (though sometimes identical) components and raw materials, some of which are managed via Excel spreadsheets on a per-lab basis. We want to consolidate this data, increase transparency, and be able to analyze inventory levels.
The following functions should be supported:
- Display and analyze current inventory levels
- Manage multiple storage locations (e.g., lab/department) – multi-warehouse capability
- Provide assistance with systematic part naming (otherwise no one can find anything…)
- Record withdrawals by lot number / project number / person / department
- Set minimum stock levels and trigger an active alert when stock falls below them
- Offer the option for a time-limited reservation of stock and actively notify of remaining stock upon reservation expiration (release / reservation extension)
- Be able to account for expiration dates, indicate upcoming expiration dates, etc.
- Be able to handle batches, mark active batches
- Enable continuous inventory, actively prompt for recounts, require a recount/control count when stock reaches minimum level + e.g., 25%, if the last count was more than e.g., 2 months ago
- Pre-agreed orders are triggered with the supplier. Call-off (e.g., via email) as well as management of the remaining quota of the call-off order can be performed via the program
- Ability to display part prices
- Ability to determine inventory value by price as of a specific date
- Setting a maximum stock quantity for a hazardous substance and automatic calculation of totals across all stock quantities to ensure the approved maximum quantity is not exceeded
- Can display preferred parts (which are “automatically” reordered), remaining stock (which is not reordered), discontinued parts, and their replacement/substitute parts
- Can store properties for components / approvals (lot number)
- Storage / integration of drawings / specifications
- Storage / integration of the ordering process, in part as a PDF scan (the ordering process is handled in another software)
- Possibly capture department-level parts forecasts at the beginning of the year / processing assistance?
- The ability to determine the number of parts withdrawn over a period (year, 6 months)
- Assignment of different user rights - view only, post, create new parts, etc.
- The ability to import an existing Excel solution into the database
- Sufficient additional information can be stored and searched, e.g., saving both supplier and manufacturer information for an item
- Ensure long-term support (support costs, costs for customizations, updates, etc.)
We are also generally interested in the overall conditions, specifically the extent to which and at what cost assistance can be provided during implementation or in response to questions.
For now, the software is needed for approximately 10 concurrent users in a server-based application.