Vendor-Managed Inventory

The trend in modern business is towards a “product as service” philosophy, where a vendor not only supplies a product, but also manages the customer’s inventory so that the amounts on hand (and any expiration dates) are managed to contract standards.

By analogy this resembles that way most users purchase natural gas. The necessary amount of gas is delivered as needed, as a service, and there is no need for the customer to order it. Also the customer can minimize inventory carrying costs by not taking title to products until they are pulled from the 3PL hub.

Through a combination of trading partner messaging, third party logistics providers, and RFID control zones at relevant sites, InSync’s Vendor Managed Inventory functionality lets both vendor and customer maintain complete inventory visibility and planning, using dashboards, metrics, and alerts.