ASSESSMENT OF INVENTORY MANAGEMENT PRACTICES: THE CASE OF HABESHA STEEL MILLS PRIVATE LIMITED COMPANY

Abstract

This research sought to examine the assessment of inventory management practices of Habesha Steel Mills PLC. The study is applied descriptive survey design and mixed research approach. The target population was employees of Habesha Steel Mills PLC. And the total number of respondents undergoes in this study was 127. Primary data were gathered using semi structured questionnaires and interview. A statistical package for the social sciences version 23 is applied for the purpose of processing and analyzing the results. The study result revealed that the information technology and internal control system of Habesha Steel Mills PLC is highly effective in managing the inventory level and meeting the customer demands. However; further improve is required in areas like inventory physical counting inspection, handling of overstocking and under stocking of inventories, data accuracy and real time report preparation. Moreover, the Company is mainly used ABC inventory techniques to determine the materials demand of the customers. More importantly, lack of management support, insufficient qualified staffs and shortage of training are the major problems for assessment of inventory management practices. Based on the findings, it can concluded that the inventory management practice sat Habesha Steel Mills PLC has a contribution in improving the company’s overall accomplishments in terms of service delivery, reducing damages and wastage, customer service, suppler relationship, inventory planning and scheduling and management of information reports. Finally, the study recommends that the managements of the company should work hard to keep on the its superior inventory management activities and try to overcome the shortcomings which were identified by this survey.