Proven Methodology

Herlitz Inventory Management has built a proven, customer-centered methodology. It is based upon an operating philosophy that our customers readily embrace and can be summed up in this quote by Anders Herlitz, our Vice President & Architect:

“You need to optimize and leverage inventory as an asset in order to meet your customer service and profitability goals.”

Buying decisions always require a degree of art and creative input for success. They also need to be based on a sound understanding of customer demand, vendor performance, and the ability to understand and optimize the economics of the products you sell.

7 Steps of Buying

The 7 Steps have been the basis for the training of over 5,000 buyers across the world.

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Demand Forecasting

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Lead-Time Forecasting

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Order Cycle Analysis

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Service Level Analysis

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Replenishment Analysis

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Special Order Analysis

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Order Validity Analysis

Anders put together these 7 Steps of Buying over forty years ago as a roadmap for companies to more effectively manage their buying process and inventory. He has designed and developed several generations of systems to provide the best possible tools to automate this process.

HIMPACT® leverages the latest technology to further automate this process and provide your buyers with a highly integrated workbench. The Buyers Workbench enables them to proactively manage these steps, which helps decrease inventories and improve customer service while lowering product and logistics costs.

Our training program and implementation methodology are highly structured and are based on over 800 implementations. Here are a few general rules we’ve come up with over the years:

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The Forecasting and Replenishment functions in your organization should be owned by the same person. Inventory and service are best served when one person owns both planning functions. This ensures that no distrust exists.

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Decisions on each of the 7 Steps of Buying should be made separately. Those individual economic decisions will translate into better orders.

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During implementation, you need to empower your Project Manager. Provide them with the authority to talk to all stakeholders on the project: Buyers, Finance, C-levels, and IT.
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Learning for most people is an iterative process. When training on HIMPACT®, new buyers need to start slowly with a small group of vendors, learning new daily processes and gaining understanding from seeing the smarter buying decisions the system makes. Once they gain knowledge and confidence, they will be motivated to move forward and roll out additional vendors.
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Make training an ongoing priority. More buyer training drives better results. Your team’s capabilities are a corporate asset. Additions of new buyers, their learning styles, and the need for a better understanding of advanced modules will create the need

Learn More About Training and Implementation

Download the Seven Steps of Buying