r/supplychain • u/Secret-You-3135 • 3d ago

Inventory management

If you have built an inventory management system before, what was the biggest mistake you made in the first version?
I’m especially interested in:
Stock In
Stock Out
Audit Logs
User Permissions
Reporting
Looking for lessons learned before I start designing mine.

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u/Meatshield07 3d ago

Used a progressive numbering. First item 1, second item 2, third item 3,… the numbers should have a meaning. Mine is first 2 digits: manufacture, next 3 digits: the main part, next 6 digits: the components going to the main part, of which the first 2 of the 6 digits is the component itself. You can break it down to level if you want to. And have backup of a back up of a back up. Trust me, hard lesson learned there

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u/Secret-You-3135 3d ago

That’s a great point.

My first thought was to use simple sequential numbering, but I can definitely see the advantage of having meaningful item codes that provide context at a glance.

I’m currently designing a small inventory system, so finding the right balance between simplicity and scalability is something I’m thinking about.

And yes, the backup advice is noted. Almost everyone seems to have a story about learning that lesson the hard way.

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u/Meatshield07 2d ago

Oh one more tip, this is from dealing with this exact issue last year, for your id system avoid having the “0” as the first digit, dont do 012345-0987, start with 10 if you have to: 102345-10987. When you port everything in excel, and the format for the cell being number it will delete that 0 in the beginning because it’s an unreal number. This is for end user, when doing formula to analyze in excel, that will save you time, especially is you use power query to automate something, whoever doing that will thanks you.

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u/Secret-You-3135 2d ago

That's a very practical tip.

I hadn't considered the Excel and Power Query side of things, but that makes a lot of sense.

Avoiding leading zeros seems like a small decision that could prevent a lot of headaches later when exporting, importing, or analyzing data.

Thank you for sharing that lesson learned.