A preliminary finding of warehouse stock discrepancy root-causes : a case of PT Astra International tbk Indonesia warehouse

Abstract

PT. United Tractors tbk is PT. Astra International tbk group subsidiary in Indonesia. Construction machinery as one of major business unit of PT. United Tractors tbk offers sales various types of heavy equipment and transportation vehicles as well as their sparepart, attachment and the related services. In providing heavy equipment and transportation unit after- sales support and service level to it's customer, PT. United Tractors tbk has more than two hundred Distribution Center (DS) or Warehouses of unit sparepart in all Indonesia big island. Inventory accuracy in warehouse is one of the most important things to control in balance to achieve optimal service level set by customer. One common activity in controlling balance of inventory in warehouse is stock opname. Stock opname or stock taking is the event or activity that counting the amount of stock in the warehouse and as the instrument to make sure that there is no discrepancy between actual stock in the warehouse and actual stock on database. This is a real issue PT. United Tractors tasked with maintaining and controlling inventory is faced with. If not avoided or detected, warehouse stock discrepancy will bring about various damaging results such as loss of sales, customer dissatisfaction and build-up of stocks which lead to increase inventory cost. There have been many discrepancy cause identified in the scope of research related to inventory accuracy in warehouse but most of the research is only carried out certain aspect of warehouse such as operation, man power management, facilities, etc. It is, therefore, the intention of this research is to address aspect causing warehouse stock discrepancy problem in many aspects of warehouse management by identifying root cause based on literature and validation of warehouse practitioner expertise. The result revealed that there are 6 aspects that affected to warehouse stock discrepancy : (1) operational excellence, (2) man power management, (3) warehouse management system (4) machine and facility reliability, (5) policy and top management, (6) environment and external factors.