مسئولیت برای تصمیم گیری موجودی در شرکت های تولیدی لهستانی

Inventories constitute one of the basic elements of logistics systems. In fact, inventories present only low value unless situated in the right place and time. The basic goal of this paper was to examine how decision-making process is organised in average Polish companies and how they are prepared to the implementation of the concept of manufacturing to the order, postponement and relative inventory location. The paper presents proportions of production to stock and to order with the basic tendencies of utilisation of capacities in Polish companies. Those are general conditions for basic patterns of inventory decision making in the supply chain depending on the location of decoupling points discussed together with the structure and rotation of inventories. The organisational and time framework for decisions on inventories have been presented, trying to relate it to basic patterns occurring in the location of decoupling points. The basic results of research on practices reported by the surveyed Polish companies in the field of inventory management have been resumed in Conclusions and they have been discussed in comparison with some data from Western countries. The research has been based on two surveys administered in Polish companies and additional information obtained from other smaller scale surveys on logistics-decision-making patterns administered by the author.

The majority of co-ordinating decisions made within the logistics systems deals directly or indirectly with inventories of materials and components, work-in-progress and finished goods. Almost all logistics strategies and the whole scope of logistics management have been used in order to secure inventories with such values as time value, place (location) value and possession value together with the lowest possible cost (Bowersox and Closs, 1996). Strategic approach to inventory management requires integrated approach to the overall logistics management in the form of supply chain management. Inventory location decision in the form of decoupling points seems to be one of the most important strategic logistics decisions. The pattern of decoupling points in logistics systems denotes the general supply management procedures and creates requirements for the shape of organisational structure for decision making in inventories management. The basic goal of the research and its results presented in this paper were to examine how decision-making process is organised in average Polish companies and how they are prepared to the implementation of the concept of manufacturing to the order, postponement and relative inventory location. Section 2 presents proportions of production to stock and to order with the basic tendencies of utilisation of capacities. Those are general conditions for basic patterns of inventory decision making in the supply chain depending on the location of decoupling points discussed together with the structure and rotation of inventories in Section 3. Section 4 presents the organisational and time framework for decisions on inventories trying to relate it to basic patterns occurring in the location of decoupling points. The basic results of the research on practices reported by surveyed Polish companies in the field of inventory management have been resumed in Section 7 and they have been discussed in comparison with some data from Western countries. The basic information used in the research originated from two sources: (1) A survey based on the pattern of the Global Manufacturing Research Group Survey, which was used by the author for examining operational manufacturing practices in selected industries all over the world. Polish survey has been extended by adding several sets of questions concerning logistics systems and general decision-making practices in logistics. The survey, with some minor changes, has been administered in the years 1992–1993, 1996 and 2000. In the GMRG-based survey 65 companies from the Upper Silesia region have been examined, ranging from heavy industries like steel production, coal mining, engineering or metal industry to food industry and electronics. The average size of a company in the sample was of 528 employees, 49 companies (76% of the whole sample) were of the size lower than 619 employees.

Studies conducted on the basis of discussed surveys highlighted the patterns of decision making, fields of main responsibilities and structure of time devoted to various logistics areas and particularly inventories. Comparing logistics management styles in Poland and Western countries (Europe and the USA), some essential differences might be spotted. They depend largely on the overall models of management, management styles and also—on actual market condition in a given economy (Masters et al., 1991). Some basic characteristics of decision-making process in the field of inventories in Polish companies can be listed as follows: • 40% of respondents confirmed their involvement in inventory management and that field is the most important responsibility of Polish logistics executives. In Polish companies, logistics management focuses on single functions (probably due to the low level of logistics integration) whereas in developed market economies the scope of responsibilities of logisticians becomes rather a package of managerial tasks. • Only 35% of respondents declared involvement in inventory management but logistics managers do not focus so much on distribution and returned goods. Polish logisticians more often tend to perform advisory functions in sales forecasting. • Polish respondents declared great importance of procurement and purchasing responsibilities. • Polish logisticians declared more responsibilities of advisory character instead of concentrating on direct management of such functions as warehousing, transport or inventories. • Polish respondents, in their decision making process, do not spend the same amount of time on various logistics activities. Examination of the structure of time clearly shows that respondents dedicate 1/5 of their time to procurement problems. A high percentage of time is spent also on sales forecasting, and further—on customer order processing, production planning and warehousing. Only then, after that whole range of listed activities, managers concentrate their attention on such an important issue as inventory control. • There are large differences between branches that indicate variations of approaches towards inventory management in subsequent branches represented by survey respondents. That approach results from the character of market demand, details of operations, type of production, etc. Information collected from Polish surveys leads to somewhat surprising observations, showing that the problems of inventory control were most often quoted as a responsibility of respondents, thus indicating the high level of importance of that problem. At the same time inventory control problems attract less time of logistics executives than other activities such as procurement, sales forecasting or transport management. One may conclude that much less time has been devoted to inventory control since most activities in that process can be done automatically through computer control software. That might be true for example for Western companies, but inventory control in Polish companies has not been fully computerised and automated yet. Management of companies confirms high importance of that factor for inventory management but in fact, common inventory control systems do not reach far beyond a simple database for inventory count. However, lots if investments have been directed towards enhancement of computer systems and equipment. Quality of decision making in the field of inventory management in Polish companies depends most probably also on the profile and educational background of decision-making managers. These issues have been examined by the second survey of logistics executives, that has been mentioned in the Section 1. The analysis of the profile of education indicates that in Poland technical and engineering profile clearly dominates (57%). Graduates of economic universities prove to be the second most popular group (34%), while other groups such as logistics and transportation specialists and managers generally educated in business constitute, respectively, 5.5% and 3.7% of the surveyed sample. Comparing with the Western European logistics executives (Zweers, 1993), where about 70% of them have a technical or numerical degree, the domination of technical type of education is lower in Poland. To resume, persons with the qualifications based on business management education, suiting best the concept of supply chain management and adequate internal integration of inventory management, constitute only a small percentage of Polish inventory managers. However, technical skills may have a positive effect on the abilities of technological co-ordination of all kinds of inventories, and particularly—production inventories. Almost 21% of the respondents were rising the level of their qualifications through different courses and training mostly in the area of logistics or a similar field. In Western European companies’ logistics executives, almost 36% of respondents completed postgraduate or second degree education. Almost one half of respondents who participated in these different forms of skills enhancement in Poland concentrated on logistics management topics (i.e. transport, inventory management, logistics strategies, etc.). About 1/5 of the surveyed Polish logisticians who continue their logistics education study organisation and management as well as controlling. Decision making in logistics generally is not integrated in the majority of Polish companies. It means that inventory management also does not present a coherent standardised procedure. In such conditions it is very difficult to plan and realise integrated strategies of production to stock and to order. Positioning of logistics managers responsible for inventory decisions at lower levels of companies’ structures do not enable strategic influence of these decisions on business policies. Moreover, without clear and powerful structure of responsibilities for inventory management it would be very difficult to synchronise product flows in the supply chain. Dispersion of logistics functions and inventory management functions still seem to be significant though attempts of better co-ordination of these processes occur quite often. The amount of information gathered and the necessity of constant verification of collected data will result in new future editions of the survey and long-term monitoring programme of logistics skills typical for Polish managers. It is quite essential for efficient and effective logistics management to pay more attention to human resource management and permanent improvements in the field of skills and qualifications of logistics decision makers. There are still many opportunities for further improvement of logistics qualifications.