Horizon Inventory Innovation Recognised

Horizon Inventory Innovation Recognised

Horizon Inventory is the winner of the 2012 Logistics Association of Australia’s Larry Smith Leadership in Technology Award (IT capability) across the Logistics and Supply Chain Industry. The Award is presented for 'outstanding participation, innovation, continuous improvement or contribution to Technology or IT capability – in either hardware or software across the industry'.  

The nomination for the Award was made by Brett Bartholomew, the Logistics Director for the Inenco group of companies, a privately owned business that is a leading distributor of Industrial Aftermarket parts in the Oceania region.

The nomination reads in part:

Consolidated Bearing Company, Hardy Spicer and BSC Motion Technology have between them well over a hundred branches servicing many industries and thousands of customers across Australia.  CBC alone has 200,000 parts on its system and over 100,000 parts stocked in over one hundred warehouses across its network.  Given that many of these parts turn over very slowly, we recognised that we needed a genuine breakthrough in how we managed our vast product range of industrial aftermarket products.

John Allen and Horizon Inventory’s micq-if inventory management software have helped us achieve just such a breakthrough.

John encouraged us to understand, question and challenge our business and supply chain model from top to bottom.  Modelling work helped us optimise our inventory strategies across our businesses.  Later when it emerged that no software vendor could genuinely offer us the solutions to our needs, the micq-if inventory management software was developed that now services our three largest businesses.

micq-if sets all our inventory levels across our branches. and mostly runs on auto-pilot.  We just need to set the high level policies across the different parts of our range and it works out the details, taking into account over 20 different variables.  For example CBC branches only require 1-2% manual overrides, typically for new products.

micq-if includes supply lead time management, forecasting, optimisation of inventory levels considering service needs, profitability targets and the required return on investment. Many features of the software are simply not found in other products... The system quickly learns what our customers need and buy. It takes much of the effort and expense out of managing a stock range as large as ours.

One of the key benefits of micq-if is the daily recommendations of what we need to order, both locally and overseas. The recommendations are presented with ‘traffic light’ review scores that help us focus on issues where the system needs help. This dramatically improves our productivity, enabling us to lower our order costs and improve ordering frequency. We can spend time on the things that really might need our attention ...

We have improved our inventory turnover, something that is admittedly claimed for many systems. micq-if however can be far more discriminating and subtle than the simplistic ‘days of stock’ and similar approaches used elsewhere. It also helped us reduce emergency stock transfers by a third, decide how much of a range we carry, improve staff productivity ... it has saved us millions and continues to do so.

Importantly the system was developed as a bolt-on to our existing ERP system. This gave us all the ‘smarts’ and ease of use we needed, while protecting the investment we had made in systems, processes and staff knowledge across our extensive network.

Now John and Horizon Inventory are further extending the software’s capabilities, making it even easier and faster to install.

By going beyond the accepted norms micq-if has helped us and can help others achieve a genuine leap in performance. It represents real world leading innovation with which we have been proud to be associated.

In accepting the Award on behalf of Horizon Inventory ...

I want to recognise the contribution made by Brett Bartholomew from Inenco who had the vision and foresight to break away from the accepted norms; the way in which Mark Grosser, Omer Ingber and my colleagues at Horizon Inventory recognised the potential, and people like Michael Moulang from Federal Mogul who showed faith in our inventory management solutions. These things don’t happen by themselves. Real innovation only happens when people work together and embrace change. I also want to thank the LAA for the recognition and the encouragement that this Award represents.

John Allen,
Director Horizon Inventory

At Horizon Inventory, we just love demanding and challenging situations and clients.  They help extend us to new heights. Contact us to find out how we can help you too.

"we needed a breakthrough in how we managed our vast product range of industrial after-market products ... micq-if has helped us and can help others achieve a genuine leap in performance" Consolidated Bearing Company, Hardy Spicer and BSC Motion Technology

Consolidated Bearing Company, Hardy Spicer and BSC Motion Technology