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April 7, 2005

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Vice President of I.T.. Books A Million, Inc. What Matters? MOST IMPORTANT: Item Code ... with bibles and non-book product, but occasionally seen with books. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: April 7, 2005


1
April 7, 2005
Making Information Pay 2005 The Supply-Chain
Story
2
Susan Harwood
  • Vice President of I.T.
  • Books A Million, Inc.

3
What Matters?
  • MOST IMPORTANT Item Code
  • ISBN / EAN
  • UPC
  • This is THE key to orders, sales, and all
    inventory handling activities
  • Scannable and Human-Readable forms are necessary,
    and need to represent the same item code.

4
SO WHAT CAN GO WRONG?
5
Mystery Items
  • Item Code not imprinted on product, but only on
    packaging on box, shrink-wrap, or decorative
    covering
  • Particularly an issue with bibles and non-book
    product, but occasionally seen with books.
  • Once an item loses its identity, we have no
    reliable way to record sales, update inventory,
    or know if reorder is needed.

6
Trial and Error?
  • Multiple item codes on product, but only one code
    provided for item setup.
  • ? Will shipment be received against known
    (ordered) identifier, or rejected ... Or will
    another item be set up with the unexpected
    code?
  • ? Will cashiers try again, if first code isnt
    recognized, or process sale as unknown item?
    If the latter ... System sales and inventory
    totals are wrong.

7
ISBN ... Or isnt it?
  • UPC barcode with ISBN only in human-readable
    form printed above it. (Scans as one number, but
    looks like something else.)

8
Worst Case
  • Improper scanning of barcode results in match
    to wrong title at POS.
  • Same result if only part of 17-digit UPC is
    provided in catalog
  • This corrupts sales and on-hand inventory data
    for TWO titles!

9
Progress
  • Sunrise 2005
  • should eliminate the worst of these problems

10
RISK
  • EAN-13
  • Questions already coming
  • Vital to follow guidance of BISG, to manage this
    change
  • Item identifier codes are not just important to
    your I.T. people! Everyone should understand the
    role they play, so internal business process
    change doesnt create problems elsewhere in
    supply chain.

11
What Else?
  • Item Substitutions problems similar to multiple
    item codes, in that orders will exist for one
    item that need to be filled with another.
  • Price Changes
  • Pub Changes titles moving from one publisher to
    another, or from one distributor to another
  • Author, Title

12
IMPACT
  • PRODUCTIVITY
  • AWBC buyers spend 40 of their time, and
    assistant buyers spend 70 of their time, on DATA
    MAINTENANCE.

13
IMPACT
  • For example, assuming a staff of 12 buyers at
    70K, and 8 assistants at 40K, that percentage of
    time on data maintenance results in approximately
    500,000 of Buyer salaries are devoted to
    NON-BUYING activities.

14
IMPACT
  • LOST SALES OPPORTUNITY
  • Item Data update required at AWBC receiving dock
    delays availability to pick by 1-4 days.
  • ?EACH days delay in picking delays availability
    to sell at 40-50 BAM stores by 1 week!

15
IMPACT
  • COST to Ship
  • Special shipping for Hot titles that would
    otherwise be delayed in delivery to stores, due
    to data maintenance, costs AWBC over 100,000
    each year.

16
IMPACT
  • COST to Receive
  • Cost per Unit to receive an item that requires
    data maintenance is DOUBLE the cost to receive
    items that do not require this step.

17
IMPACT
  • Cost in Returns
  • Item data errors, particularly in Final Return
    Date and Publisher / Distributor fields, result
    in problem returns. Problem returns cost 7
    TIMES as much to process as regular returns.
  • Returns to wrong publisher, or returns refused
    because past final return date, cost both
    parties.

18
IMPACT
  • SALES TRACKING and INVENTORY
  • Item code inaccuracies or conflicts result in
    miscellaneous sales, which decreases accuracy
    of sales reporting and on-hand inventory
  • This in turn depresses reorders because systems
    dont know product has sold and needs to be
    replenished.

19
IMPACT
  • Excess Ordering/Returns
  • If Item code conflicts result in orders under
    one identifier and inventory on-hand under
    another, units of the first will continue to be
    ordered until received as that item, and units of
    the other will be returned due to lack of demand.
  • ?Lost sales, excess inventory, unnecessary
    shipping, excess returns...

20
CONCLUSION
  • BISG standards provide the framework for trading
    partners to share timely and accurate item data.
  • Idiosyncratic definition of what values to place
    within fields in standardized formats cause the
    majority of confusion, and/or editing upon
    import.
  • BISG sub-committee is working to define
    critical fields, and expected format/usage to
    help standardize data values in these fields.
  • BISG guidance will be a critical success factor
    for the industry, in moving to ISBN-13.
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