Technology has helped us traverse oceans, explore the moon, and reach the farthest corners of the world. However, we don’t often stop to evaluate how technology can solve the subtleties of our day-to-day tasks.
Incredibly, we encounter several businesses that have little to no idea about the consumption of their maintenance, repair, and operational (MRO) inventory. Gloves, gaskets, you name it!
How can you properly plan for the future if you don’t have control over your current inventory and procurement practices? Planning for the future ensures that your plant and equipment is always running.
While these minute details might be considered nit-picking for the average business, their costs can quickly result in an operational nightmare. However, there is a solution for all of these headaches – Industrial Vending Services!
What Are Vending Services?
We are all familiar with the concept of vending machines and know the industrial vending services we talk about are sophisticated pieces of operational technology.
Used to dispense and keep track of small inventory, you’ll most likely find these machines stocked with safety supplies, PPE, fittings, spare parts, and frequently used.
When accessed by employees, industrial vending machines track and monitor inventory, send alerts for restocking, all the while churning out useful reports to increase your efficiency.
This can be incredibly useful for high-turnover and use-based inventory management, reducing variances and inaccuracies.
But, this isn’t the only benefit they provide. There are some pretty incredible KPI’s that industrial vending machines can improve for an enterprise, so let’s go through them!
You Have Lots of Small Inventory
As mentioned before, smaller inventory is difficult to monitor without the right tools. Even with common database tools, such as Microsoft Excel, inventory management of frequently used materials can be ridiculously taxing for your employees and your company’s time.
Industrial vending solutions cut down on all the
Not to mention the versatility with reporting. Do you have a large supply of new or seasonal employees? Several business segments pulling from one inventory warehouse? Tracking is made easy with industrial vending machines.
Utilizing an ID management system for employees, your vending software can keep track of which segments of your operations are utilizing the most inventory, who might be using too much, and can even predict inventory restocking.
All of these tiny efficiencies help to reduce unwanted costs surrounding frequently used inventory.
You Want to Reduce Cost
We don’t want to repeat ourselves too much, but this is what industrial vending installations are for – Saving money!
Beyond control over your small or frequently used inventory, vending solutions focus on reducing the use of high-turnover inventory through careful monitoring and analysis.
This solution is fantastic for both number-crunchers and those who don’t love math! This is due to the advanced data that you can create and uncover, as well as the ease involved with automated inventory tracking.
In fact, many of these services come with predictive metrics. If you have an item that is in constant demand you can effectively eliminate stock-outs with proper notification management and alerts for key managers.
On the opposite end, managers can keep track of lower use inventory. If a piece is no longer in need due to technological innovations or simply because it rarely breaks the information is there for your inventory management team to reduce or eliminate these items entirely!
You Need an Increase in Productivity
Poor inventory management does more than just hurt your manufacturing processes, it extends to every area of your business. So instead of hampering your productivity, streamline it with industrial vending machines!
Traditional in-house inventory can often be found in a mutual space for employees known as “cribs”. The problem is that most employees have varying definitions of “in-order” or “clean”.
Consolidating internal inventory into vending machines decreases the time needed for reorganization, decreases trips as well as time spent in tool cribs, and completely removes the need for micro-managed cleanup.
As well, industrial vending offers insights into high-turnover items. This information can be especially useful to identify machinery that may need maintenance or repair, or items that could be of low quality.
Situations like these can often be overlooked by busy management and we get that. Nonetheless, having these statistics available might just be your business’s next close call! Save yourself the stress and stop letting your inventory control your productivity.
Convenience in your Inventory Management
While some may like complete control and be aware of every single minute aspect As well, managers can get absorbed into focusing only on high-value inventory, disregarding the “small change” that is MRO.
Industrial vending services often come with monitoring software designed to reduce the amount of “on-hand” tasks that need to be completed. Time saved can be invested in other initiatives that could offer a larger ROI.
Automatic restocking, analytics, and reporting are all possible with industrial vending programs. And the great thing is the information for each machine is accessible in one program, eliminating tedious back-and-forth between staff.
You Need a Custom Solution
Everybody claims to offer a one-stop solution, but very few services offer the flexibility to customize their programs to fit your industry.
This is not the case with industrial vending services. More often than not, these systems are suited to modify for individual strategies, such as safety stock levels, calibration requirements, and so much more.
If your inventory management revolves around customization and real-time decision making, then industrial vending machines might be your best solution!
Can’t Decide Which Vending Services Are the Best?
So here you are, evaluating multiple industrial vending suppliers to find the best. But how do you know if it suits your company?
Well, the quickest way to test is with one question – “Do your industrial vending services pair with Tofino’s all-in cloud solutions?”
Vending solutions paired with Tofino allow companies to see across sites whether they have the supplies or parts required for work orders, as they are being created. Stock out? Spot-buys are easy with all critical supplier catalogs and e-commerce sites right in Tofino software.
However, Tofino doesn’t stop there! We offer plenty of solutions for maintenance, procurement, resource planning and more. If you would like to learn more about how we help companies reach THEIR goals, you can
Or want to have a more in-depth conversation on how Tofino can help you achieve your business goals? Contact us today.