The product lifecycle status of an item is a catalyst that drives several other systems and company processes. Each division must use the status codes properly because incorrect information can cause ripple effects throughout numerous departments.
See Product Lifecycle Status Codes for more information about the various codes and their definitions.
How do incorrect codes impact other departments?
Compliance:
- Status codes determine what items are tested and could lead to unnecessary fees.
- It can lead to unnecessary expenses in compliance subscriptions.
- For example, we have some customer-required software for audits, testing, and PO inspections. Some of these have a pricing tier structure based on the number of items we have loaded (i.e., WERCSmart Subscription).
Customer Service:
- Status codes determine how C/S responds to certain customer orders.
- For example, for Liquidate/Closeout/Promotional items where the quantity on hand is 0 or lower than the quantity ordered by a customer, a C/S rep generally won’t look to see if more inventory is on order and would advise the customer to close the line.
Product & Sourcing:
- Can lead to inaccurate information in vendor negotiations.
- All product information for non-closeout/non-liquidate/non-obsolete items must remain up to date and can lead to unnecessary item upkeep.
- For example, a Non-Stock item that hasn’t been sold in 2+ years still requires attention and upkeep.
- Several reminders and searches filter by product lifecycle status, which can cause incorrect or incomplete information.
Supply Chain:
- Purchasing Power – these significantly impact how we purchase something. We need to make sure we aren’t buying items that are not needed.
- For example, if an item status is Active, but sales have slowed, it should change to Under Review as a flag to review and get approval. We can go on as usual if the item is truly active, but certain statuses require specific buying methods.
- The status code helps determine replenishment planning which is vital to our POI metrics.
Sales and Marketing:
- We prioritize updating photography and content by status codes. If a product is improperly coded or not updated, it could waste resources in these areas.
- If a product is improperly coded, it could be cross-sold to a customer when unavailable.
Warehouse Operations:
- Creates inefficient bin slotting/preferred bin location assignments, as we do not want to slot promotional and closeout items with actively replenished items
- Leads to wasteful preferred bin sizing because we want to move closeout items to shelf/smaller bins and keep only actively replenished items in full pallet bins
- Creates ineffective item bin min/max quantities, slowing down inventory replenishment for picking
- Can create inefficient put-away plans for inbound POs because it is a waste of time putting away/up promotional items with actively replenished items
- Leads to inaccurate cycle count classifications
- Inability to quickly identify closeout items with a high pallet count of excess inventory which we want to move to ADV containers