Joe Moore is the director of purchasing at Performance Warehouse, a Portland, Ore.-based distributor and a member of the Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance. The company was honored recently with a Polk Inventory Efficiency Award for its use of an inventory optimization tool that has helped increase sales by 6 percent while reducing inventory.
What do you think is the biggest supply chain challenge you face in your business?
Parts proliferation. No doubt about that. It has run rampant. If you don't manage your inventory as closely and as often as you can, parts proliferation will eat you alive.
Are there technologies or solutions you see in the market that you think show promise for your own business or the aftermarket in general?
More supply collaboration. When there is so much inventory that needs to be carried by the supplier and the distributor, if we don't work together, we will hurt each other. We won't put each other out of business, but we can't help each other be profitable and successful if we don't work together. We need a complete view of the supply chain from the manufacturer to the distributor and through jobber. If we can get that and make business decisions based on what has been sold, we're in a much better position.
I don't think vendor managed inventory will happen in the aftermarket any time soon, but something pretty close to that, or a similar collaborative effort, that makes sense to me.
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