Well, happy roo-roo day, boys! You're working that week, doing inventory!

The warehouse manager won't be there for the next 3-4 weeks, the materials crew isn't coming in, and the [brand-new] general manager (who's assigning this task) will be on a cruise with his family. But you fellas be sure and get all that done, and get it done accurately, y'hear?

Merry Christmas, peons!

Hey you are pretty smart for an Engineer maybe you should look into consulting. Then you only have yourself to blame for working the holidays. {This is not sarcasm}. I have been self employed for decades and would never go back.

Ask for the report from the accounting department for the inventory they believe to be present. End of year inventory checks are often to reconcile and identify shrinkage. Watch your six.

quote:

Originally posted by 4MUL8R:
to reconcile and identify shrinkage.

There's definitely a mismatch, we're sure of that. The primary grouch my team has about it right now is the scheduling. Short week + short of resources = likely an incomplete job. --> Gotta do it again later.

quote:

Originally posted by 4MUL8R:
Watch your six.

Yessir.

"I believe that this will require a substantial amount of overtime, Sir".

I may have been an auditor in prior life. I have two good stories about the BS that happens during inventory.

One is an overreach by us and making company break seal on a trailer that had “inventory” in it in transit. The other is a great call by senior on inventory noting some BS counts by most of staff causing a broad recount. Both were on 12/31. Both left me happy to escape the lot.

More to come. Fun memories.

My father was just telling me...

Based on the Holiday Schedule the school district he works for releases at the beginning of the year, he and everyone else was under the impression that they were off the entire week of Christmas. School being closed and the teachers off.

Well they informed them just yesterday that this was in fact a typo. (that no one caught or at least thought to mentioned for the last 11 3/4 months). Hope you didn't make any plans!

quote:

Originally posted by cas:
a typo. (that no one caught or at least thought to mentioned for the last 11 3/4 months)

Omgosh, that stinks!!

How does that go unnoticed for so long?

I'm pretty protective of my free time. Yeah, I understand, you're the boss. You get to tell me when to work. But if I already had plans on what was scheduled free time, you get to reimburse me for them. And if my family had plans, you get to reimburse those too.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:

quote:

Originally posted by 4MUL8R:
to reconcile and identify shrinkage.

There's definitely a mismatch, we're sure of that. The primary grouch my team has about it right now is the scheduling. Short week + short of resources = likely an incomplete job. --> Gotta do it again later.

That's not how year-end inventory is supposed to work. You send out people to go count the inventory and then the accountant checks to see if it matches. Otherwise, it will go, "tell us how many the system says we have." Then after a while, come back and say, "Yep, that's what we have."

The problem with sending people not familiar with the inventory to count is that they're not familiar with the inventory. The problem with sending people who actually work with the inventory is that they are familiar with the inventory and if they're doing shenanigans, they can push out that issue a year down the road.

They usually do schedule inventory counting during Christmas time because most of operations are off and not much is happening that is affecting inventory.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
That's not how year-end inventory is supposed to work. You send out people to go count the inventory and then the accountant checks to see if it matches.

We had some discussions on that last week.
My big question was, "will this be a) the accountants say "this is what we think we have, go find it" or b) we'll go count every danged thing and tell the accountants what's actually here?"

My small team and I got a head start on the process on Wednesday and Thursday, taking one of the accountants along for the ride and counting what's in each warehouse location, bay by bay. I feel like that's the more thorough plan, and the accountant along with us seems to agree.

We'll see how well that continues tomorrow -- I'm told a couple of the corporate peeps are supposed to be on-site.
("We're from corporate, and we're here to help." )

Crew update: incoming GM is planning to be with us tomorrow and Wednesday; outgoing GM has signed on for the full week.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
The problem with sending people not familiar with the inventory to count is that they're not familiar with the inventory.

True. And that's likely to be problematic, given that the entire materials group will be absent.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
They usually do schedule inventory counting during Christmas time because most of operations are off and not much is happening that is affecting inventory.

And that's part of our beef -- this event wasn't scheduled until a week before the break, which had been scheduled for a year. We all expected to be on our own schedules this week, not the organization's.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
That's not how year-end inventory is supposed to work. You send out people to go count the inventory and then the accountant checks to see if it matches.

We had some discussions on that last week.
My big question was, "will this be a) the accountants say "this is what we think we have, go find it" or b) we'll go count every danged thing and tell the accountants what's actually here?"

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
They usually do schedule inventory counting during Christmas time because most of operations are off and not much is happening that is affecting inventory.

And that's part of our beef -- this event wasn't scheduled until a week before the break, which had been scheduled for a year. We all expected to be on our own schedules this week, not the organization's.

Standard is people go out two by two. One counts and the other confirms. Then the inventory location is tagged as being counted. Then you go to the accountant who checks his numbers. IF there's a discrepancy outside of the tolerance (greater tolerance for "C" or low value items; smaller tolerance for "A" or high value / critical items), then the counters get sent out to double check. Then the accountant reconciles either one location has more inventory than one location for the same item in which case, it's just an inventory movement that wasn't transacted or the discrepancy is inside the tolerance and the accountant writes off the discrepancy and adjusts his records. The write-offs get correspondingly higher approval sign-offs up to VP level given the dollar amount. If it has to go to VP approval, the transaction records will also be reconciled in hopes of figuring out where the inventory might have went.

As far as the event not being scheduled before the break, you can bet upper management including cost accounting knew this well beforehand, at least, at the beginning of the fiscal year. Determining if a year-end inventory will be done isn't a spur of the moment thing. At best, they might have thought they'd bring in outside counters which do this regularly which is a problem in itself as they don't know the inventory. And, as time approaches, they figure these outside companies are having a hard time getting people or the costs have gone up and they figure they have these workers available anyway so why not use them. It usually is the planning department and the engineers (manufacturing, QA, etc.) who get roped into doing the counts.

quote:

upper management

Fuck those guys and the horse they rode in on

I would tactfully tell them to kiss my ass. But, I'll admit that I am in a position that I can do that and if they don't like it I am not scared to walk away. I know that's not the case for a lot of folks

I am upper management now and i can confirm, 100%, i do not do this to my people.

I have told my VP and directors if they want this performed on the schedule they ignorantly require, they need to be present, with me, to complete said task because those other people worked their asses off all year to make the directorate and executives look good.

If this is not acceptable then the task can wait until after we all return and recuperating from the time off.

I heard the same BS excuses OP did hear and my retort was to to reply verbatim what i had just said only beginning with, "now listen slowly, I’m to repeat this again."

I had my pee pee smacked for how i spoke to the executives and the director who threw the biggest fit about being at work, she found a new opportunity with another company at the VP’s instance.

Word got around real fast and now when something needs executed on a short timeline, it’s my teams who are fighting with each other for the opportunity.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
I am upper management now and i can confirm, 100%, i do not do this to my people.

I get that, for sure. When this first was announced, I questioned each of my reports: "You are out of town next week, right?"

quote:

I have two good stories about the BS

1 - First was an inventory somewhere in east-nowhere TN. Don't remember exactly what they made, but they had a metric shitton of parts, screws, bolts, components, etc. One of us was checking some high-dollar fasteners, using weight as a first estimate of accuracy of the count they had tagged. Way off. Counted them down, and they were over by something like 3X. Meanwhile same going on in nearby item, same result but about 40% of actual. A few more checks and it was pretty clear from the test, let alone the crew who had counted this section looking VERY uncomfortable that they had just made shit up in an effort to get out sooner.

In fairness, it was NYE afternoon. Our manager told the company director they were going to have to recount the entire section, every single item that this group had tagged. Hilarity ensued, and we were really happy to make it out of that lot alive.

2 - Working inventory at hosiery mill and our over-zealous manager got the bright idea that they needed to "test count" one of the trailer-loads of product still in inventory but also sealed up inside a cargo trailer outside. ALSO on a NYE count.

After trying to talk him off of this stupid idea, which in his mind just enforced his spidey sense intuition, management finally gave in, broke the seal on door, opened it and voila, full truck. Not to be denied he then had them pull the first few pallets off to proved it wasn't just fronted cartons with air behind.

More hilarity ensued again - somehow our partner in office had gotten wind of this by then, called the on site team and told them to stop fucking around with this very significant client and move on.

Moral of the stories? There are assholes on all sides of the equation sometimes.