The Institute of Supply Chain Management (IoSCM) is the leading provider of supply chain management qualifications globally.

As the pace of change across the supply chain is ever increasing, refreshing and developing your knowledge and skills to adapt to these changes is more important than ever. IoSCM understands that not everyone has the time or requirement to study a full qualification and therefore they have created a fantastic range of bite-size online training programmes. Created by Industry experts each of the courses have been designed to give you a great understanding of a particular topic or function from across the supply chain. Ideal for those looking to learn about a new area or to refresh and expand your existing knowledge to help you advance within your chosen profession without the restrictions of studying for a full qualification.

Who is it for?

The introduction to inventory bite size course has been written and developed by experts with combined experience, totaling decades, of working in the wider supply chain industry. Using first-hand knowledge and experience of the purpose and importance of managing inventory within modern business, the introductory course has been written to support you with expanding your understanding of:

• The purpose and importance of inventory
• How to effectively manage inventory levels within your organisation
• How to forecast demand for inventory
• Why factors such as stock rotation, locations and coding each play a key part in the successful management of inventory.

The course is designed to give you a detailed introduction to, and understanding of, what inventory is. Highlighting the key differences between; raw materials, work in progress, finished goods and consumables, we examine why each is needed and the importance of monitoring each group.

The bitesize course then moves on to look at the purpose of inventory within a business and explores what is meant by the term ‘safe stock.’

Next, we look at re-order points and why factors such as supplier lead times need to be considered when calculating the re-order points of individual items within your business’s inventory.

Important factors such as stock rotation are always part of a successful inventory management system. We look at what stock rotation is and why it needs to be done as well as exploring different ways to categorise inventory.

The next section of the course looks at forecasting demand, with a focus on different forecasting methods. Simple moving averages and weighted averages are just two areas of consideration.

The bitesize course finishes by explaining inventory locations and coding. These two topics can mean the difference between successfully managing inventory to support your companies standard operating procedures or having a system that does not work effectively.

The bite-size course is an online interactive learning programme, broken down into informative topics to help you progress through the course in a user-friendly way. Throughout your learning, you can use the self-test questions to cement your understanding and can pause and resume your studies whenever it is convenient.

On average the course takes three to four hours to complete, making it the perfect learning tool for Professionals with busy lives. In addition to the reading materials, you will find videos and infographics throughout your course to provide you with further insight into the topic you are studying.

Learner Outcomes

Upon completion of the introduction to logistics online training programme you will have:

• The confidence and knowledge needed to understand the purpose and function of inventory.
• The ability to differentiate between the different types of inventory and the importance each one plays within inventory management.
• Understanding on the key factors to consider when using, or working within, inventory management to support your companies daily operations.
• Ongoing access to the learning materials for you to refer back to at a later date.
• A certificate of achievement from a world-renowned institute.

The Introduction to Inventory course matches perfectly with the Introduction to Warehousing Activities & Receiving Goods bite size course to give you a more rounded view of Warehouse and Inventory and its importance within the importance within the Supply Chain. Alternatively, upon completion of the course, you may decide you would like to achieve an industry recognised qualification blending your newly gained insight with experience from within the workplace. More information on the complete range of qualifications can be found at www.ioscm.com.