Back in early 2005 no one was coordinating our parts orders. Some stores were just ordering whatever they needed. Both situations needed improvement. Each store was doing the work that we already had a buyer doing. Although market specialization is a good thing, it means we had 45+ buyers doing a job inefficiently. We have a corporate buyer, an E3 analyst and our E3 system to keep the stores supplied with essential parts. Rick Stryker volunteered to step in, and coordinate the orders for a few months. He set up a system of ordering that simplified the process to something that’d make sense to all of our distributors and speed invoice processing in our Accounting Dept. That was rolled out to all stores in August 2005.
The process worked well enough that it has continued to this day. It also grew, and Rick was eventually returned to the position of Bicycle Training Coordinator. The coordinator(s) for those orders are now Tom Connell and Aaron Dunn, who are our Fitness and Bicycle Buying Team. However, we still have too many people doing "buying". If you consider it fully, each store is still forming repetitive orders for repair and showcase parts. Those who are doing an excellent job are still only affecting their individual stores, which is a waste of good work and intelligence.
We have three types of orders in the Bike Dept.
1. Repair parts- these are things that are used in the process of normal repairs. Cable housing, tubes, chains, etc. If communicated to the buyers, these items should be coming into your store by way of our E3 system. It is far more efficient to have these items on-hand in our warehouse, and send ‘em out on the next truck.
2. Showcase parts- this category of parts is used to attract customers, and show the range of service that we are doing. These parts may also be “cutting edge” or used to grow a category of bike sales/customers.
3. Special order items- sometimes you have to order something in for a customer. We currently have to dance around some distributor “minimum order” amounts, but those orders are still being processed well.
Here’s the plan for orders in the future:
1. Repair parts- No one goes from zero tune ups a month to 60, so your rate-of-sales on all parts would change over a month, instead of a day. These parts are tracked and reordered thru E3 now. The parts that E3 orders and stocks will need to be increased in their range and depth, but this is something we are likely changing now. Shop Personnel time should not be spent generating orders for basic items that ALL stores are ordering. Future state: Repair parts are automatically ordered by way of E3 and tuned to your store's range of customers by communication with the buyers and E3 analysts.
2. Showcase parts- we demonstrate our expertise by ordering parts that are compatible and interesting to our customers. We can and should be relying on the buyers and E3 system more, by communication of hot new products and customer interest/demand for products that we don’t stock yet. Example: if stores begin consistently sending in organized “Top 10 items to add” and “Bottom 10 items to lose” emails we will manage our inventory across 50+ stores in a very smart way. Instead of ordering "one at a time plus shipping x 50 stores", we put the power of our organization into the ordering process. This will have to be managed by the Buying team if it’s going to work well.
3. Special order items- trying to change this will only reduce our ability to please the customer. If they want something, we order it when pre-paid. “Please the customer”, it’ll never be a bad policy.
When the Bike Trainers first heard this, we were “not happy”. After some discussion, we saw the value. You may be in that stage right now. Think about how much time you spend on basic orders, and how you could be growing your repair volume instead; it just makes sense. As ever, your comments are appreciated.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
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1 comment:
At first I started thinking that this change would not be a good thing. And that it would just make things even more difficult. But the more I read into it and thought about it, I agree that this new process will be much more effectiant and timely. I look forward to putting together a list of hot and not items that we are dealing with, and communicating with the byers to improve our buisness.
Gregg
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