A quality control approach for monitoring inventory stock levels

In this paper the authors develop a new approach to monitor the accuracy of an inventory management system. A recorded stock level is considered accurate when the recorded level agrees with the actual stock level, otherwise there is an error. In practice, management relies on methods to measure or assure inventory accuracy not necessarily developed for this purpose. The present methodology is based on the average absolute relative difference as a simple analytical measure for inventory accuracy (ACN). The approach captures the status of accuracy in an inventory and allows for greater understanding of what affects inaccuracy since the theoretical measure of accuracy is composed of several parameters representing the incidence and proportion of both overstock and understock. The implementation of the methodology is constrained because complete inspection of the inventory is very expensive in most situations, so the authors develop the sample analogue of the accuracy measure (ACn) and discuss sampling strategies. The accuracy of the inventory system is monitored by incorporating ACn into a univariate control chart.