IBM Cognos Performance Applications

Inventory Analysis


Understanding inventory as part of Supply Chain Analytics.

The pre-built reports and metrics of the Inventory Analysis application give you a better understanding of your inventory investment, turns, returns, and material movements. You can:

  • Know what you have, how much you have, and how much it's worth so you can manage costs more effectively.
  • Ensure you meet the demand of internal and external customers.
  • Analyze inventory for vendor, material, warehouse, region, and other perspectives for greater understanding.

Inventory Analysis gives you more than 70 key performance indicators and more than 40 reports. These metrics and reports are grouped in six key areas of analysis, answering a variety of business questions:

  • Stock Overview and Valuation
    • What has been our average investment in stock this period, and over time?
    • How many units of inventory do we have? In which locations? Plants? Warehouses?
    • How many days of inventory do we have in each warehouse? Are we meeting demand in each region?
  • Material Movement Activity
    • How many movements have been processed this period, compared to last?
    • What types of issues have been processed? What proportion of materials have been issues to order fulfillment, consignment, and scrap?
    • How many receipts have been processed by employees this period?
  • Demand
    • How many goods issues were processed this period versus last?
    • What specific material segments were issued? How did this compare across the company?
    • How much lead time is there between the request for stock and the required date for stock? Has this changed over time?
  • Material Reservations
    • How effectively has confirmed stock met requirements for material this period?
    • How do our warehouses rank in terms of meeting requests for inventory in full? Are some warehouses consistently underperforming?
    • Are excess inventory reservations prevalent in warehouses or material segments?
  • Physical Inventory
    • How accurate have our physical counts been across the organization?
    • On average, how large have our shortages been, and where have they occurred?
    • Are there any warehouses or storage locations that are not meeting standards for physical count accuracy?
  • Inventory Forecast
    • How close was this period's inventory forecast to actual results?
    • How accurate have forecasts been for "A" class materials in a specific warehouse?
    • How have forecasts for specific items changed over time?