“Anthony…. there is a problem” I barely heard on my phone over the echoes of conversation and people working in the depot. But I knew it was one of the stock controllers out in the field. “What’s the problem?” “The old stock count form is reporting an over of 3,000 kwacha. When I tried the same numbers in your new program, it’s calculating a short of over 4,000,000 kwacha.” All of the commotion in the warehouse immediately disappeared from my conscious.
“Did I miss a formula? Did I remember to update his database with the latest forms? Is there a typo somewhere? I swear I checked the formulas that calculate the cash totals hundreds of times….” I questioned myself. It took a few seconds of looking at all the angles. Could it be a functional error? I doubted it. Could it be the interface? He didn’t mention anything…
“Hey, when you entered the TOTAL cash received from the shop…”
“Yeah?”
“Did you enter ALL the cash you received or did you just enter the part that’s for veterinary and feed sales?”
“Just the cash for vet and feed.”
“Ok, you’re now supposed to enter all the cash, for vet, feed as well as the pre-payments for day-old-chicks.”
“Ah, that must be it.”
The problem wasn’t functional, it wasn’t the code, or the program, or the stock controller. It was a small change in the stock controller process that I wanted to make. A change I forgot to mention to the stock controllers themselves.
A stock controller and shop manager reviewing counts and cash due
If we are going to expand this business, serve more farmers, and employ more staff, the capacity of management first needs to be able to handle the additional business. Giving the company confidence that they can manage their assets by giving stock controllers the ability to effectively manage more shops with less effort was the underlying goal with deploying a new stock control and reporting system.
There were a lot of things that were already in place that made developing a new database for stock control worthwhile:
- Staff was mobile, reducing the feasibility for an off-line system
- Staff are already being trained to use computers and “staff computer training” is on my list of deliverables
- All staff involved in the stock control process have access to their own computers
- The current process already had a computer program component at its core
- Many of the frequent decisions and calculations surrounding stock control are simple and can be automated
- Management was keen evolve their internal processes
- Staff “upstream” desired a reduction in the number of forms they receive
- I was confident we’d be able to develop something within the first few weeks of my placement
Simplified previous-state map of the stock count process
A simplified current-state map of the stock count process
I remember doing one of our initial tests of the new system in Ndola. “You are over by 3,500 kwacha.” “Well, just let me have it then if it’s over” the shop manager said to us. I was still typing in the data in my new database and was wondering where the overage could come. I punched in all the information on all the products including pre-payments for items that weren’t captured before. After hitting enter on the final item, I saw 0, and the box calculating the difference went bright green thanks to some conditional formatting.
“You’re balanced” I said “the extra cash actually belonged to the pre-payments”. “Oh, okay. I’m balanced? I’m getting my free bag of millie meal!” He was excited to be closer to that free bag of pounded maize flower that the shop managers decided they wanted to win if they balanced all their books for the entire month. I congratulated him, said thanks and shook his hand over being balanced without problems and walked out back to the truck.
Being able to better manage and calculate all of the stock, cash and pre-paid vouchers moving in and out of the organization would allow them to reach farther, without increasing overhead. After testing, these databases are now in the hands of stock controllers and they’ve moved completely to the new system.
Time will tell how this impacts their business.
