When you consider what is needed to run successful restaurants, what comes to your mind? Great menu offerings, excellent locations, or smart marketing? All of that is critical, but another factor needs to be added to that list – accurate inventory management. Because keeping your stores stocked with the appropriate amount of supply is essential in reaching your business goals.

National DCP’s Inventory Management team works intently to ensure our nine distribution centers and your restaurants are always stocked with the appropriate amount of supply. Their diligent efforts ensure that customers experience lower levels of waste, minimize supply shortages and make storage areas more efficient.

We utilize an inventory management system that helps tackle the challenges of assuring the necessary level of inventory is in the right place at the right time. The explosion of e-commerce, omnichannel fulfillment, expanding relationships with national and global trading partners, and the strike of an unforeseen global pandemic have created new challenges to accurately managing inventory.

Managing Through COVID-19

“The team immediately came together to best decide how to combat this quickly evolving COVID-19 crisis,” said Senior Directory of Inventory Management Chris Bonduris. “We had to rebuild the pipeline based on the new demand patterns that were changing overnight and get the products we did need flowing back into DCs in a very timely fashion. We had to have product in our DCs to ensure restaurants could continue to service their customers.”

The inventory team had to effectively manage the flow of our supply chain while balancing upstream supplier exchanges and downstream customer demands. They leveraged strong relationships with suppliers (and suppliers’ suppliers) to capitalize on early pay discounts to continue offering customers the best price on product.

Teamwork is essential in tackling unforeseen circumstances head on and overcoming them. Whether it is coordinating with Operations to manage DC product levels; working with Sourcing to help facilitate relationships with suppliers or communicating with inbound transportation partners to get product in, it’s a combined effort. Everyone is marching towards the same goal — providing the best service at the most affordable cost to members.

Whatever lies ahead, NDCP can always count on our Inventory Management team to help customers operate effectively and efficiently.