Stocks and Flows

This documentation notebook is also available in Spanish

Stocks management and logistics management might be associated to the term «stocks and flows». The objective is the control de flow of materials the source (suppliers) to the point of sales (customers) according to the specification of the clients. A company must balance the costs of keeping the stock at the warehouses and intermediate buffers with the potential of increasing market sales, keeping a high flow rate throughout the whole supply chain.
The document includes a first general part with the aim to understand the stock management philosophies along the stages of the supply chain. For  illustrative purposes, a case study of a company that distributes goods in two  stages is solved using Gantt charts (to analyse the influence of batch sizes) and simulation in the spreadsheet (to quantify the effects of the variability of the demand and the lead time on stock levels and WIP).
The second part of the document is devoted to the individual analysis of each part of the supply chain. First, Chapter 2 includes purchase management and the economic order quantity. Then, Chapter 3 covers the comparison of the philosophies to transfer materials between buffers within a company (MRP, Just-in-Time,  CONWIP and  the Theory of Constraints). Finally, Chapter 4 includes the design of warehouses as a function of the layout, the available space and the easiness of movements.
Case studies are used in each chapter to illustrate the real application of the concepts to industrial and service companies.

INDEX
1. THE FLOWS OF MATERIALS
2. SUPPLIERS AND PURCHASE MANAGEMENT
3. THE FLOW BETWEEN BUFFERS AND WAREHOUSES
4. FINISHED PRODUCT LOGISTICS: WAREHOUSES