Bookshelf -- 'Essentials of Inventory Management'

March 14, 2011

Covers inventory-management concepts

This book serves as a basic primer on core inventory-management concepts, offering such information as formulas for computing breakeven points and profit margins, cycle counting, and calculating replenishment costs. The writing is straightforward and educational in tone, with questions and notes at the end of each chapter designed to reinforce the readers confidence in having understood the concepts.

What the book could use more of, though, are real-world applications, particularly in the way of case studies that illustrate how specific companies are benefiting from using these inventory-management techniques. While the basic information presented is solid and useful, the reader is too often left wondering how well these methodologies work on the shop floor and in the warehouse.

Although this is a second edition, the author missed a few opportunities to update the book, particularly on the technology side. The chapter on bar coding and RFID, for instance, doesnt say anything about GS1 standards or 3-D symbologies, and in its overall discussion of technology it seems curiously frozen in time back in the early 2000s, when the first edition was issued. Similarly, the book shies away from a discussion of lean manufacturing (only a single paragraph is devoted to the topic), automation, robotics, material handling, warehouse-management systems, sustainability initiatives or other topics that are very much part of the discussion when it comes to inventory management in 2011. Essentials of Inventory Managment Second Edition By Max Muller, AMACOM, 2011, 257 pages, $39.95