Excess or poorly tracked inventory quietly drains a company's working capital long before anyone notices the impact on the balance sheet. Warehouse, supply chain and inventory teams who cannot explain why stock levels rose or fell struggle to protect their organization's invested capital from avoidable loss. This training course from the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy tackles that gap directly, walking participants through the practical variables that drive stock levels and how those variables interact with one another.

Rather than starting from theory, the course builds outward from real MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) inventory problems, equipping participants with purchasing and supply management principles they can apply immediately. Along the way, they examine standardization, variety control, surplus avoidance and service-level management, alongside the broader toolkit of stock monitoring and control techniques needed to set stocking levels and order quantities with confidence.

Who Should Attend

• Warehouse, supply chain, planning and inventory managers.
• Any manager with overall responsibility for inventory management.
• Staff responsible for defining material and equipment specifications, monitoring and disposing of stock, or selecting stock items and quantities.
• Staff responsible for demand planning and purchasing for stock replenishment.
• Graduates and anyone looking to build a career in fast-growing supply and inventory fields.

Course Objectives

• Apply different methods for measuring the performance of factors affecting inventory, and assess their organization's position against each one.
• Determine the right timing and tactics for improving stock levels, and build an action plan to reduce them within their own organization.
• Understand inventory-related terminology and how the underlying concepts connect to one another.
• Identify the factors that determine appropriate stock levels.
• Discuss how responsibility for these factors is shared across departments within a company.

Module 1: Why Inventory Costs Matter

• Ordering costs and holding (carrying) costs.
• Stockout costs and expediting costs.
• Administrative costs linked to inventory.

Module 2: Setting the Right Stock Levels

• Determining order quantity and the maximum stock limit.
• Setting the reorder point.
• Defining the minimum stock level (safety stock).

Module 3: Inventory Fundamentals and the Supply Chain

• Definition and types of inventory, and why it matters within the supply chain.
• Criteria for a successful supply chain and the justifications for holding stock.
• Inventory control concepts and their impact on the financial manager, plus the inventory control system.
• International trade terminology, standardization, variety control and avoiding surplus.

Module 4: Handling Dead Stock and the Theory of Constraints

• Conducting a physical stock count.
• Criteria for classifying an item as dead stock, and the common causes behind it.
• Methods and procedures for disposing of dead stock.
• The theory of constraints as applied to inventory.

Module 5: Service Management, Control Techniques and Practical Cases

• Service management within the inventory function.
• Monitoring and control techniques used across the previous modules.
• Practical case studies.

How This Course Is Delivered

• In-house training at the client's organization.
• One-to-one individual training.
• Group training sessions.
• Hands-on practical training.