As the economy starts its slow recovery, the good news is that area companies are beginning to see orders increase. The bad news is that fewer employees remain to keep inventory levels steady, order supplies, and pay invoices.
Because of this dilemma, Atlantic Fasteners of West Springfield, MA has seen an increased interest in its Atlantic Inventory Management Service. This service, which is driven by computerized bar coding, allows any Northeast firm that orders the same items repetitively to increase efficiency and virtually eliminate errors and stock outs. Currently, one 15-year Atlantic customer is interested in such a system to manage some $2.5 million worth of supplies.
Atlantic started managing fastener inventories by bar code scanning in 1993. As customers realized the benefits, they asked if Atlantic could manage non-fasteners supplies, too, which spawned Atlantic Inventory Management Service in 1994. It’s designed to handle repetitively ordered, low value items such as industrial, office, medical, and safety supplies. Atlantic manages supplies shipped by other vendors. With advancements in technology, Atlantic has constantly improved the offering to increase efficiency with capabilities such as management reporting and online monitoring.
With its service, Atlantic handles all the tasks involved in maintaining inventories, such as checking stock, reordering, put away, error resolution and paying vendor invoices. It sends a summary invoice once a month to the customer.
"This frees up important resources for our customers," said Tony Peterson, President of Atlantic Fasteners. "For one customer last year, Atlantic paid 628 vendor invoices, while the customer paid only 12 invoices to Atlantic."
While other inventory management services are available, Atlantic’s competitors offer either a select group of vendors or a large variety of typically standard products. Atlantic’s system offers its customers the opportunity to work with any vendor the customer prefers, from specialized, hi-tech firms to mom and pop storefronts.
Atlantic understands that while it is in the fastener business, its core competency is inventory management. Because sound inventory management service reduces the total cost of procurement, Atlantic is helping its customers get back to prosperity.
