Inventory Planning and Stock Control Essentials
1Summary
How much of your working capital is quietly sitting on a shelf right now, and how much production time was lost last quarter waiting on a part that ran out? Both questions point to the same discipline: inventory planning and control. This course from the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy tackles that discipline head-on, giving materials and warehouse professionals a working toolkit rather than just theory.
Rather than starting from definitions, the course opens with the cost side of inventory — what shortages and overstocking actually do to a budget — before moving into forecasting, reorder logic, safety stock, and the digital systems that keep modern warehouses under control. Graduates leave with a practical framework for keeping stock levels lean, accurate, and aligned with real demand.
2Objectives and target group
Who Should Attend
- Stock and warehouse teams, including supervisors.
- Staff in procurement, supply and supply-chain roles.
- Production and material planning officers.
- Anyone handling inventory decisions who wants a stronger technical foundation.
What Participants Will Take Away
- A working grasp of inventory planning and management fundamentals.
- Practical methods for forecasting material requirements accurately.
- Control systems that prevent both shortages and overstocking.
- The ability to read inventory KPIs and act on them.
- Familiarity with the digital tools used in modern stock management.
3Course Content
Module 1: The True Cost of Getting Inventory Wrong
- Storage, ordering, shortage and overstocking costs.
- Economic order quantity (EOQ) as a way to minimize total cost.
- FIFO, LIFO and weighted-average valuation, and their effect on profit and asset value.
Module 2: Understanding What You're Managing
- The role of inventory in operational continuity and its strategic weight.
- Raw materials, work-in-progress, finished goods, spare parts and strategic stock.
- Classifying inventory items by usage and value.
Module 3: Setting Thresholds and Building a Safety Net
- Minimum, maximum and reorder point calculations.
- Determining safety stock levels and balancing cost with operational security.
- Rapid-response policies when consumption spikes unexpectedly.
Module 4: Forecasting and Reading Consumption Patterns
- Quantitative and qualitative forecasting techniques, including mathematical models and expert judgement.
- Fixed consumption-rate and historical-data approaches to estimation.
- Comparing actual versus estimated consumption and identifying fast- and slow-moving items.
Module 5: Material Requirements Planning (MRP) in Practice
- The MRP concept and its role in cutting waste.
- Bills of materials, order scheduling and the data MRP requires.
- MRP's relationship with procurement and production.
Module 6: Monitoring, Records and Performance
- Real-time versus periodic monitoring, and the role of manual inventory cards.
- Organizing item cards and maintaining accurate movement records.
- Turnover rate, service and availability levels, shortage and spoilage rates, and periodic or surprise counts.
Module 7: Technology, Supply Chain and Sustainability
- WMS features, RFID, barcodes and IoT for real-time tracking.
- Integrating inventory management with the supply chain and balancing demand with supply.
- Smart analytics and machine learning, and linking inventory practices to circular-economy and waste-reduction goals.