Inventory Management with MIM

Supply chain issues have been the center of attention since mid-2021, and buyers have been hyper-focused on lead times now more than ever. But, what do you do when availability cannot be guaranteed? Tim Wilson is joined by Mike Croy, Mobile Market Manager for Morrell Group, to discuss Morrell Group’s solution to these supply chain challenges.

Customers are having difficulty getting components across the board – computer chips, plastic tanks, and hydraulic components. If they do not receive their parts in time, they are forced to shift their production schedule or shut it down completely. Do customers have any recourse? Is there a solution for on-time deliveries when so many variables are at play?

Morrell Inventory Management (MIM) is a program where Morrell Group’s internal sales and purchasing team becomes an extension of a customer’s purchasing or planning department. Customers provide a 12-month rolling forecast of the machines they will build. At that time, our sales team makes a bill-of-material to identify all of the components associated with each machine. Morrell Group’s sales team creates a detailed ledger report with the components required and their release times, which is the timeframe from which the product is requested to when it is shipped. A product forecast is then shared with Morrell Group’s vendor partners to plan their production accordingly.

In the past, customers may not have been able to produce their machines because a vendor’s lead time crept out beyond what was expected. MIM is a successful program that mitigates that risk. Morrell Group has provided this service to customers for years. It only recently was formally named and marketed to the customer base to expand the offering.

MIM also allows customers to carry less inventory so they can run leaner and more profitably. Customers can also easily increase their production with a simple planning conversation with their MIM team. Mike Croy shares how Morrell Group is perfectly positioned to support customers manufacturing various quantities of machines. Some customers build 25-30 machines while others make 10-15,000 a year. MIM is adaptable and works for each of these use cases.

Morrell Group is the first Bosch Rexroth distributor to have a formalized inventory management program with their customers. Now, Bosch Rexroth is encouraging their other distributor partners to do the same. The planning helps Bosch Rexroth in their production planning and resource allocation, leading to on-time deliveries.

Learn how MIM serves current customers and how Mike foresees the program will evolve in this episode of Evolution in Controls.