We’re trying to improve at sustaining inventory of higher importance things, which range from the control system components & brushless motors to bearings, fasteners, and metal/plastic extrusions and sheet. We’ve had some instances of running out of things we should never run out of… I’m proposing we identify the “quantity we want each season start” for a critical subset of our inventory & do the replenishing orders in late April & May each year (can’t order during summer). How are others sustaining critical inventory (annual replenish? Just-in-time?)?
Thanks.
With current supply chain delays – it seems like order in April/May and “just in time” for the next season might actually be the same strategy…
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We definitely subscribe to the philosophy of stocking COTS in Summer/Fall (so now) to ensure we have them before the season starts. We maintain a massive spreadsheet of every COTS part we purchased with yearly quantities, and adjust those quantities up or down as needed.
It’s incredibly important to us to have COTS instock come beginning of the season so the team can hit the ground running and we aren’t waiting on critical components. This apprach can lead to an over abundance of stuff that may not be used any given year, however we are fine eating the cost since it may be useful down the road for prototyping or a future game.
One area where we aren’t the best at is quickly ordering stuff as it it runs out of stock. I’ve seen other teams create order cards for COTS parts and place them in the part bins, so if you see an empty/near empty bin, you order the part listed on the card.
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I’ll bet this approach is pretty common. My team does this. The only modification I’d suggest is that the replenishment could also take place in the fall depending on availability of funds and availability of stock to purchase.
Gears, belts, cylinders, wheels, and that sort of thing have too many sizes/styles to stock everything (at least for us). Each season, we try to order a few sizes/styles that we don’t have so over time we have a pretty good selection of these things in prototype quantities.
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FRC - It’s more than robots. Learning the ropes of Inventory Management.
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