EVALUATION OF USEFULNESS OF INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

---

Introduction

1.1 Background Of The Study

Every Organization has to its own purpose of operation. The level of actualizing the objectives or goals determines how efficient and effective that organization is. But for the goals of any organization to be achieved, such entity must observe some stipulated or laid down principles for its effective performance. When these rules are followed simultaneously, then the usefulness of such principles or concepts will be achieved.

In general term, management has been recognized as that which plans, direct and as well control the effective use of organizational resources to achieve its objective.

Akpala (1987) as in Onuoha (1991:4-5) defines management as the process of combining and utilizing or of allocation of organization’s input (men, materials and money) by planning, organizing, directing and controlling for the purpose of producing output (goods and services) desired by the customers so that the organizational objectives / goals are accomplished.

In evaluating a topic as this, one ma start by analyzing the key words in it, such as usefulness, inventory, and management as they relate to the manufacturing concerns.

Something is said to be useful when it is achieving the best objective, purpose aim or goal of its wage. And also when using the laid down rules and resources available, achieves the best desired goals without wasting the available resources.

According to Ama (2001:470), inventory is the stock o goods a firm is producing for sale and the component that make up the goods.

Again, Hilton (1994:13-14) defines inventory as: an itemized list of goods or valuables with their estimated worth, specifically, the annual accounting stock taken in any business.

Therefore, from the above definitions inventory is the totality of all the stock, which includes: raw materials, work-i-progress and finished goods that enable an organizational to produce. It could also said to be the total amount of goods and or materials contained in a store or factory at any given time.

But the question is: are there ways of handling these inventories for the purpose of achieving the best thereof? The answer is simply yes! The inventories must be managed and controlled in order to achieve their usefulness.

In doing this, the production manager, purchases manager and the sales manager of the organization always put heads together to

design suitable ways of handling the level of stock purchases, production stock requirement and sales using some feedbacks to exercise controls in order to synchronize result with the standard set.

According to Lucey (1989:29), inventory management is the system used in a firm to control the firms’ investment in stock. The system involves recording and monitoring of stock levels, forecasting future demands and deciding when and how to order with overall objective of minimizing in total, the cost associated with stock.

However, inventory management is the ability of an organization to use all the techniques at its disposal to hold the quantity of stock (inventory) that will be enough to produce its required goods needed by the customers at the appropriate time and at least cost to the organization with the view to maximize profit.

Thus, Ama (2001:475) states the following as the usefulness of inventory management to the organization.

• Reduction in cost incurred due to inventory holding.
• Maintenance of certain level of customer services that are excellent.
• Sustenance of a large size of inventory for efficient and smooth production and sale operation.
• Maximization of profit.
• Sustenance of minimum investment level in inventories.
• Avoidance of risk of losses due to theft, frauds, waste or carelessness due to large stock holding.
• Production of adequate and accurate information regarding inventory to management of effective decision making about the firm.
• Boost of customers holding.

Organizational resources ate always limited in supply ad the resources are best utilized when wasteful organizational practice(s) are avoided. It is therefore, the aim of this work to evaluate how beverage companies as part of manufacturing concerns have been avoiding wastages in inventory by using efficient inventory management and control techniques like Economic Order Quantity (EOQ), Just-In-Time (JIT), Quick Response Manufacture (QRM), among others to render efficient services to their customers, maximize their profits, a avoid production hold-ups in factories ad eliminate risk of liquidity crunch, etcetera. To achieve the above

objectives, some beverage companies like Seven Up Bottling Company, Limca Bottling Company (Eastern Bottlers LTD) and Coca-Cola Nigeria Bottling Company were selected for this study.

---

1.2 Statement Of Problem

The main problem of this research work is that the inventory management techniques that operate efficiently in other countries of t eh world like Britain, Japan, United States of America; among others do not do so in Nigeria local environmental factors through the needs of the models to operated effectively. The specific problems are as follows:

1. Cost of obtaining and holding inventories is always high and this affects the price of the finished products the concerns thereby making it difficult for the common people to get or buy them.
2. That manufacturing concerns due to poor transportation system and unreliable delivery services that hold well in Nigeria find it difficult to determine or forecast workable lead time and inventory levels that can enable them place order at the right time and get replenishments.
3. Due to production hitches suffered by the manufacturing concerns, their customers who are the suppliers to the final customers find it difficult to obtain their required orders especially during festive periods like Christmas and New years, among others, thereby causing scarcity of the products and increase in price.
4. It is difficult in Nigeria for the operators in the manufacturing concerns to determine the quantity of inventory to order which is economical due to variations in environmental factors such as price changes or products due to constant petroleum price fluctuations that affect other facets of economic production.

The above problems among others have made the researcher to embark on this work to evaluate how efficient the inventory management techniques are operating in the manufacturing concerns in Nigeria.

---

1.3 Objectives Of The Study

The general objective of this work is to evaluate the application of inventory management in Nigeria manufacturing concerns, so as to

know whether they operate efficiently like in other countries of the world such as Japan, United States of America and Britain among others.

While the specific objectives are to:

1. Determine if manufacturing concerns place orders at the right time and obtain quantities of inventories that are economical through the use of inventory management.
2. Determine whether the companies do not have enough inventory size or quantity that help them have hitch-free/smooth production and sales to their customers.
3. Ascertain whether the use of inventory management enables the concerns to reduce the cost of inventories ad thereby improve on their liquidity.
4. Ascertain whether the companies maximize their profit for the full benefits of their stakeholders.
5. Assess if the organizations render efficient services to their customers through prompt delivery of their orders at attractive prices.

---

1.4 Research Questions

For a meaningful research work to be carried out on the usefulness of inventory management in manufacturing concerns, a number of questions must be asked and answered. The following are therefore, some of the research questions:

1. Do manufacturing concerns use efficient inventory management techniques such as: economic order quantity (economic lot size) and just-in-time, among others?
2. Does economic lot size technique in particular assist manufacturing concerns to hold sustainable size of inventory, for efficient and smooth production?
3. Has the inventory management and control techniques help them to minimize their costs of inventories?
4. How have the manufacturing concerns contributed to the economic growth of their host communities in particular and the country, Nigeria at large?
5. Does efficient inventory management help the manufacturing companies to maximize their profits?
6. To what extent have the customers of manufacturing concerns received satisfactory services from the manufacturing companies?

These question will be structured in such a way that the respondents will state whether they strongly agree, agree or are neutral or disagree in their responses. The answers from these questions will form the basis of the analysis.

---

1.5 Statement Of Hypotheses

A research hypothesis is a generalized and verifiable statement about a state of phenomena which may be true or false.

According to Onu (1996:13), the validity of a hypothetical statement is subject to verification which must be based on adequate information on which decisions could be objectively based for either to accept or reject such a hypothesis. Thus, a research hypothesis is defined further as a rule of accepting or rejecting the validity of a statement on the basis of random samples from the chosen population.

Therefore, these research null hypotheses will be empirically tested in this research work.

1. Ho: Manufacturing concerns do not minimize costs of inventories through the use of economic lot size (economic order quantities).
2. Ho: Just-in-Time (JIT), Economic Lot Size and Quick Response Manufacture (tools of inventory management) do not assist manufacture concerns to hold sustainable size of inventories for efficient and smooth production.
3. Ho: Economic Lot Size (ELS), Just-in-Time material Requirement Planning (MRP) and Quick Response Management (QRM) tools of inventory management do not help manufacturing concerns to maximize profit.