Streamlining Inventory Management In Aerospace Manufacturing

To eliminate inefficiencies in monitoring excess material from purchase orders, the Inventory Gurus team thoroughly assessed Win-Tech Inc’s inventory management procedures. Win Tech, a small aerospace manufacturing firm, currently faces challenges stemming from manual inventory tracking, poor shift communication, and underutilized ERP capabilities in Job BOSS. Our objective was to design an integrated inventory management solution that enables real-time tracking, improves warehouse organization, and reduces operational costs. Leveraging a structured problem-solving methodology, the team mapped baseline processes, developed targeted requirements and evaluated alternative solutions using the TOPSIS multi-criteria decision model. Of the three options, full scanner integration with Job BOSS emerged as the superior solution, offering a 54.7% ROI with a sub-24-month payback period, outperforming all other models in scalability, data integrity and ease of implementation. Warehouse simulations conducted via Flex Sim and process experiments via Arena validated significant gains: material retrieval time reductions of up to 20.91 minutes per shift and average distance savings of 189.43 feet per operator. The team’s application of 5S methodology further anchored these gains in sustainable operational practices. Financial modeling projects direct labor savings between $3,825 and $10,078 annually per operator, translating to material bottom-line improvements. The strategic recommendation is immediate deployment of scanner integration supported by warehouse reorganization, workforce re-training and staged system scaling. This initiative will transform Win-Tech’s inventory tracking from a reactive manual process into a proactive, real-time control system, safeguarding its supply chain resilience, increasing throughput capacity, and strengthening its position as a trusted partner to major defense contractors.