Hydrian Blog

From logistics, delays, product returns, and “spilled orders” to customer trust and brand loyalty. Why do some customers keep coming back to the same brand? Chances are, it’s because that business delivers a promised level of satisfaction and fulfillment. Simply, its products are consistently available when its customers desire them. When customers buy from you, …read more

There’s nothing else like Hydrian’s expertise, technology, strategy, and daily support. If you feel like your inventory challenges are hopelessly out of control, Hydrian can help. Managing variable supplier lead-times, dynamic demand, and snarled supply chains across broad distribution networks is immensely complex and typically involves a high volume of day-to-day inventory tasks. Time and …read more

Presented at International Fastener Expo 2021 In early 2020 as COVID swept across the globe, supply chains began to reel as the consequences of the pandemic forced actions such as factory shutdowns and workforce shortages. The resulting leadtime increase led to a jump in order quantities to account for the extended time between receipt of …read more

Presented at Home Delivery World 2021 Before beginning, it is important to define two different types of stockouts in a network with multiple distribution centers: 1) Local Stockouts: Out of stock at the “best” or closest distribution center to the customer but in-stock in other distribution centers across the networ 2) Global Stockouts: Out of …read more

Fill Rate vs In-Stock Rate: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters At the start of any engagement with a client, one of our first tasks is to agree on the language we’ll use to talk about inventory performance. One of the most important metrics is how much of your product is in-stock and available …read more

One of the questions we are asked by nearly every new client is: “What should my fill rate (or service level / in-stock rate / backorder rate) be?” Without diving into item-level sales and supply chain data, this is an impossible question to answer, and we strongly caution against trying to set fill rates against …read more

Most of our clients receive notices from vendors when leadtime changes significantly. Sometimes these notices are at the product level, for example when a SKU is on extended backorder. Occasionally, a notice may impact many items, such as when a manufacturing facility is temporarily shut down. The COVID pandemic is causing more frequent supply chain …read more

One of the counter-intuitive rules of inventory management is that after a sudden drop in sales (like the one many of our clients are experiencing) inventory on-hand will rapidly increase before falling back below its original level. This is because vendor purchase orders are, to some extent, created to replace future sales that are going …read more