A lot of warehouses don’t have an Inventory Control Manager, and instead try to deal with problems as they come up. This often leads to headaches and quality issues for the customers.
At McCook, we have a full time employee dedicated to inventory control. He makes sure that our warehousemen are rotating product without issue, does pre-emptive counting and is on hand to trouble shoot issues on the floor. But the most important job the Inventory Control Manager has is to train the guys on the floor to maintain a proper inventory.
These days, inventory control isn’t just about knowing how many boxes are in the warehouse. Date and inventory codes need to match up between the warehouse and the customer. If there’s a food safety issue, the hold needs to go on the product in question immediately.
A full time inventory control manager also plays a key role in food safety. If a recall happens, and a warehouse hasn’t kept accurate shipping records, the company is facing a panic searching coast-to-coast trying to locate the tainted product.
Freddy Ocampo, Inventory Control Manager at McCook Cold Storage- review his profile on our Leadership page.