Improving the Performance of Inventory Management in the Royal Thai Armed Forces Headquarters: A Case Study of Military Technical Training School, National Defence Studies Institute

Abstract

          The objectives of the research are 1) to explore the current situations and problems related to logistics management of a governmental organization; 2) to implement First-in First-out system for each periodic acceptance of supplies to enhance the performance of inventory management; and 3) to compare speed and accuracy of inventory information and control records. The study integrates an appropriate method which improves the performance of inventory management. The population used in this research is office supplies and computer equipment which were obtained from the review of purchase documents of durable goods from 2015-2018 to represent all the population involved in the research.

          The findings from the study of current problems and organization characteristics reveal major difficulties occurred in the organization, including the inability to identify the accurate number of items in the inventory due to problems with inventory management and the inability to pick the correct supplies in the storage space due to an unorganized and unruly storage system. According to the assessment of the effectiveness of inventory management system from May to August 2018 the speed (minutes) of picking supplies measured after the implementation decreases significantly. The fastest speed of picking supplies belongs to blue ballpoint pens:

          The speed in May is 14.43 minutes and in the last month of the experiment, August, equal to 2.15 minutes, which by 12.28 minutes. The least improved speed belongs to Kyocera copier ink; the speed in May is 13.10 minutes. ompared to 1.43 minutes in August, the speed decreases by 11.67 minutes. This shows that the effectiveness of inventory management has improved. The findings from comparing the accuracy of inventory information and control records of paper clips from 2015-2018 indicate that the implementation of Visual Control and FIFO technique results in 100% mistakes in data errors, which means that the management is not very effective.