Primarius is an advisory firm and developers of specialist optimisation software solutions. Our area of expertise is in improving business operations so that companies become more profitable and can improve their cash flow.

Our specific areas of expertise are in inventory and resource optimisation.

Inventory Optimisation

In many businesses inventory is an essential ingredient for their success. They either make stock items or buy it in from suppliers for sale or distribution to other parties.

As such the management of this inventory is vital for a number of reasons –

Cash Flow

Inventory ties up a lot of cash. Superior management of inventory means less cash is needed to fund the business and can be invested elsewhere or used to retire debt.

Revenue

Sales targets can’t be met if the business runs out of stock of key lines. Customers will move to other suppliers who can provide more reliable service. Similarly if a business can offer superior order management capabilities it will become more competitive, pick up customers and increase sales revenues.

Costs

Inventory attracts costs. The cost of the items bought, the cost to transport it, the cost of financing the purchase, the cost to store the goods, the cost to distribute inventory, the cost to manage it and, unfortunately, the cost to write-down or scrap unsellable stock, all contribute to costs and dilute margins. Planning, buying, storing and managing inventory more efficiently lowers these costs and leads to increased profitability.

Managing inventory so that cash flow, revenues and costs are optimised cannot be accomplished by traditional management techniques and software systems.

Primarius provides both management advice and the necessary software system (our OMS Inventory Optimisation solution) required to optimise inventory. Combined, Primarius can assist firms to increase sales, reduce costs and improve stock turns – improving profitability and working capital utilisation.

Results Achieved

Inventory Reduction

Projects where OMS has been used have achieved significant inventory reductions – averaging 40% - with improvements being seen within three months of implementation (which is a normal lead-time for any new orders placed).

Out of Stocks Management

In tandem with inventory reductions, out of stocks management has improved dramatically. The forward vision of potential problems has seen clients take corrective action well in advance and stop problems occurring. A distribution client achieved the following results using OMS –

Reduced Operating Costs

With improved stock turns and concentration on managing products which do contribute to the business, not only do out-of-stocks reduce dramatically but many products are no longer bought on best guesses or hunches. With reduced inventories warehousing and finance costs reduce dramatically. Additional space and extra labour, particularly overtime, are no longer required. Stock taking is quicker and more accurate. Importantly, distribution costs are significantly reduced – orders are picked once and shipped once. Subsequent ‘free’ shipments to clients are avoided as Delivery In Full, On Time (DIFOT) rates improve.

Examples in operating costs reductions enjoyed by clients -

Resource Optimisation

Just as some companies require the use of inventory to be expertly managed, other companies may focus on providing services involving, for example –

    - The utilisation of a fleet of trucks to distribute stock to customers
    - The provision of skilled people to carry our certain functions, for example -
          o Field service agents repairing equipment
          o Merchandising staff setting up promotional material
          o Installation crews carrying out new installations
    - The melding together of project tasks, inventory and resources on single or multiple projects.

In all these applications there is a requirement to optimise the available resources to obtain the best solutions. These solutions need to be dynamic as, every day, some events or requirements may change, requiring the planning to be re-calculated and resources needing to be re-planned.

Resource optimisation involves managing the many permutations and combinations of complexity involved in routing or allocating resources to tasks such as –

Assets – selecting the correct asset – for example, a certain type of truck, or specific piece of equipment

People – determining the correct person who has the specific skills and availability to carry out a task

Tasks – Projects can involve a multitude of different tasks, functions or jobs to be carried out

Locations – The task may need to be performed at certain locations, in a specific order and

Timing – Tasks may be required to be carried out at a specific time or in a specific order on a particular day or within a range of days.

Primarius has developed scheduling optimisation engines capable of carrying out the most complex resource optimisations. We have utilised these engines and developed them into client-specific software solutions for companies who require the management of resources to carry out tasks based on a mixture of skills, times, routes, availabilities and the like.

Results Achieved

Resource optimisation can improve operating performance and reduce capital costs significantly. An example of this is the result from a Transport Fleet Route Optimisation project where both the fleet and the routes were optimised to produce the best results –