Introduction of inventory planning has been made mandatory for IPTs, with the intention of optimising inventory on a through life basis to maximise availability and equipment sustainability within constrained Departmental resources.
A suite of new stock accounting systems, the DE&S Stock Accounting Collation Systems ("DSACS") has recently been introduced. The implementation has been considerably complicated by the need for integration with legacy systems and phased migration of DE&S onto the DII IT platform. The system, which is now fully deployed, has the potential to provide significant improvements in transparency of stock holding by the MoD.
An internal audit / assurance process of IPT inventory plans has been in place since April 2008. Under this process IPTs are measured upon quality / robustness of the plan in place for inventory control and supported by the JSC (as was) in developing fit for purpose models of inventory requirements to meet "best practice" standards. However, improvement in IPT coverage of inventory planning has been slow, and there appears to be significant scope for improvement in many inventory plans.
Actions are underway to improve management reporting of inventory and place greater focus on improving inventory management practices. A new 'Management by Facts' tool, referred to as the DIET (Defence Inventory Effective Transformation) project, aims to track number of metrics each month to understand the inventory planning performance of IPTs. Key measures will include the availability of requested items, the value of the inventory held and the percentage of disposals made.
These initiatives will go some way towards reducing inventory costs within IPTs and in turn overall support costs. Although the Team has not carried out any independent review of these programmes, it appears to be the case that there is scope for significant efficiencies to be extracted from the MoD's inventory planning and management practices.