If you are a business that needs to bring in supplies from all over the United States in order to make your product and then ship it back out all over the states to sell it, you are doing a lot of supply chain management. Supply chain management, when done correctly, can be fantastically efficient. However, when it is not done correctly, you risk wasting a lot of time and money, therefore reducing your profit margins. Here are some tips for improving the profit margins of your supply chains.

1. Make the Threat of Running Out of Stock Obvious Before it Actually Happens

If you are trying to create a product and you run out of one of the parts that you need, the entire process grinds to a halt. This is problematic because you are wasting both time and money. It is necessary to limit the amount of stock that you store due to physical limitations; however, you need to strike a balance between limiting stock sensibly and having everything that you need. You can do this by putting a system into place that will make any shortages obvious before they actually happen. You can install a better inventory management system that tracks your inventory in real-time and allows you to set a threshold for how much of each item you want to keep in stock at all times. Once it goes below this amount, the inventory management system will warn you. If you set an intelligent threshold, you will know that you need to reorder as soon as possible and get the products before your truly run out.

2. Check Automated Ordering

Set up a task force to check each of your automated orders each month. You want to make sure that you are not paying for unnecessary product or sending it back because it takes time and money. You also don't want to order everything by hand. By having a task force ensure that your automated orders are still perfectly optimized for your current situation, you will be able to make sure that you are avoiding additional costs.

3. Reduce Time Between Order and Payment for Your Customers

Finally, tell all of your customers that you are reducing the time between order and payment. This means that the customers have to pay you more quickly. Then, set up an automated reminder if any payments should be late or if the due date for the payment is getting close. This will allow you to see if there are any problems with the payments and will encourage customers to tell you of any issues, since the money has left their pockets.

For more info, talk to a company that specializes in logistics.