Stainbrook: The Next Step Beyond Bin Stocking

John Wolz

In grocery stores you increasingly see product detail men rather than the store�s own staff putting products on shelves and setting up displays. That is an indication of the future of vendor managed inventory, Craig Stainbrook of John Deere Co. predicted in a National Fastener Distributors Association session.
Instead of keeping bins of fasteners stocked, distributors may be delivering fasteners directly to the production line, Stainbrook ventured. There will be profit in doing it, he added. �Fee-based services will grow as an important source of revenue and profit.�
Stainbrook is an author and certified purchasing manager with a PhD in supply management.
Another market change manufacturers and distributors face is the global comparison of prices.
The fishbowl nature of price comparisons today changes traditional salesperson loyalty, Stainbrook said. How many buyers you deal with have you been dealing with for more than five years?� he asked. There were few in the NFDA audience reporting buyers with longer tenure.
International buying is a global restructuring of the economy. �It isn�t a brief shudder. It is an organizational structure of the last century being torn apart,� Stainbrook explained.
�How successful you are depends upon how well you can dance with the changes,� Stainbrook said.
New �corporate imperatives� are causing havoc with business development.
It remains to be seen how much ordering is done over the Internet, Stainbrook suggested. Online ordering is being adopted slower than expected just two years ago.
Supply chains will continue to be important, he predicted. Supply chains reduce time to market, minimize the process flow and inventory costs and better utilize assets. �The 1970s inventory is gone,� Stainbrook declared.
Prices, taxes and transportation are the traditional visible costs. Hidden costs include purchasing, receiving, storage, obsolescence, invoice/payment and spoilage.
�The good thing about radical change is that, during these times, the little person has a chance to make a big difference.� �2003 FastenerNews.com