Inventory Management - Essay Example

Inventory Management Inventory Management refers to the process of specifying the size of stock that should be held by a businessentity and placing them at the safety levels. Inventory management requires that this process should be undertaken at different locations and terminus, to ensure that the whole chain of supply, have no disruptions (Tempelmeier, 17). It is through suitable and effective inventory management, that the efficiency of the supply and delivery chain is attained, while improving on the financial performance of a business entity.

Since inventory refers to that idle stock that is held by an entity for fulfilling future transactions, then considering planes as inventory at London’s Heathrow Airport, then, the head of operations have various ways of improving the inventory flow into the airport. Reducing the time spent by the planes in the run way is such one option. Through the reduction of the time spent by individual plane on the runway, an opportunity is created to increase the number of planes landing and taking off, consequently improving the rate of passenger arrival and departure, which goes a long way in increasing the cash flow into the airport and consequently the revenues earned (Tempelmeier, 24).

Scheduling planes for arrival and departure is yet another aspect of inventory management for planes, which serves to ensure that the planes does not compete for available resources such as runways or the passengers, when all of them arrives or wants to depart at the same time. Having a system, which clearly indentifies the whereabouts of the planes, is another aspect of inventory management, which helps in communicating with the plane, reducing the chances of delays (Tempelmeier, 29). Considering the passengers as a unit of inventory, then, managing them becomes necessary to ensure there is effective arrival and departure from the airport, without having any delays or time wastage.

The management of passengers as inventory requires the scheduling of arrival and departure time differently, to ensure that there is no congestion of passengers in the airport, which is likely to cause confusions and delays in clearances (Tempelmeier, 16). Designing different entry and exit routes for the passengers to and from the airport will serve to ensure that the arriving passengers and the boarding ones do not meet at any point within the airport, effectively improving the efficiency of traffic flow.

Scheduling the earliest and the latest time that passengers should arrive in the airport is another aspect of inventory management that help in avoiding passenger delays, while reducing the number of people within the airport at any given time (Tempelmeier, 33). Space and time are the other important aspects of time management. Thus, applying these as units of inventory, then the head of operation can embark on buying fewer but larger planes, which will not require more space to occupy in the landing space and runway, yet they carry many passengers to minimize the space requirement (Tempelmeier, 22).

Effective scheduling of passengers and planes is an aspect that serves to save on time. Acquiring efficient ticketing as well as clearance system will also help to save on the time required to undertake these activities. Works CitedTempelmeier, Horst. Inventory-Management in Supply Networks – Problems, Models, Solutions (2nd Ed.). Norderstedt: Books on Demand. Paperback, 2011. 15-44. Print.