Tool
One replenishment cycle, end to end
How many replenishment cycles a month, how many minutes each one takes, what an hour of the person checking costs, what share ends in a stockout or a rush purchase and what that costs. Below, the same cycle with an agent: where it goes, what it does at each step and what stays with a person.
One replenishment cycle, end to end
- the agent does it
- a person does it
- always a person
the steps of the replenishment
- Check every item against its reorder pointStock system
Looks at all two thousand every day, not the fifty somebody carries in their head, and flags the ones that crossed the point.
- Cross it with each supplier's lead timeSuppliers
Uses that supplier's real lead time rather than an average, which is the difference between ordering in time and ordering late.
- Build today's order listPurchasing
Delivers the day's list with the reason for each line, instead of a spreadsheet somebody has to interpret.
- Confirm the lead time with the supplierEmail and chat
Writes or calls to confirm the lead time still holds before issuing, which is when lead times stretch without anybody saying so.
- Assemble the purchase orderPurchasing
Leaves the order assembled with quantities, current prices and the date it is needed, ready to authorize.
- Chase the order until it arrivesSuppliers
Chases the supplier when the date passes, which is the follow up abandoned the moment the order is issued.
- Flag the stockout that can no longer be avoidedEmail and chat
When an item is caught past its window, tells sales before a customer finds out.
- Authorize the purchasePurchasing
A purchase order is money committed to a third party. A person authorizes it, on a list already assembled and justified.
Today that is 70 hours a month of checking and 12 items ending in a rush purchase or a stockout. Between the time and the premium, USD 1,320 a month.
With the agent holding 7 of the 7 steps, 4 hours and USD 66 are left.
The difference is USD 1,254 a month, USD 15,048 a year.
And 36% of that difference is not time: it is the premium on rush purchases that stop being necessary.
Of what a person still does, the heaviest step is: Authorize the purchase.
You set all five numbers. How the minutes split across steps is ours, taken from how it gets done by hand. The modelling assumption: the stockout born of checking late falls in the same proportion as that check stops depending on somebody having a free morning.
This object is the interactive half of an article: Inventory replenishment with an AI agent: how to avoid stockouts and rush purchases