How many stocking groups is enough?

[spwilkins]

We were formerly on R&R and used the standard GM stocking groups. Now that we are on ADP Alliance and the automatic moves to the correct stocking group do not occur, we have begun using only 2 stocking groups - Stocked and Non-stocked. We have a broad inventory with very little depth - only 1 QOH on everything but the fastest moving parts. We order almost every day, get it the next day from GM and almost never have a "we just sold the last one an hour ago" situation for a normally stocked part. We purchase only a very limited amount of parts from our AC Delco WD or other dealers since we are so far away from both. I think we need to break out maint items so we can control pricing from parts department, and so service doesnt need to discout, but dividing by fast moving, slow moving, top 100 doesnt seem to be of value to us. Am I missing something?

[chartle]

spwilkins,

If it is working for you, great! I think you answered some of your own questions. You are going to want to consider a couple of sources down the line if you go onto RIM. You'll at least want a source for RIM controlled parts and one for non-RIM controlled parts. Having your AC-Delco and/or fast moving parts in a group that you can control pricing and/or also increase the depth a bit is great.

I like to teach about the Characteristics of parts such as :
Captive Parts
Competitive Parts
Non-Stock Test Parts
Special Order Parts
Forced Stock Parts
Obsolete Parts
Creating groups to isolate these for different settings in width/depth phase-in/phase-out and such to easily identify and track them and adjust pricing. But, if it is working for you and saving you time, then you are restricted only by your ability to control them.

Chuck Hartle'