A Comparative Study On Inventory Management Models In Enterprises

Enterprises have to hold inventory because of many reasons, and inventory is always a large proportion of total value of assets in enterprises, especially in business enterprises. But this leads to much cost in enterprises. So, inventory management is one problem in financial management.There are two basic questions in inventory management. First, how much to order/produce? That is, order/production-quantity decision. Second, when to order/produce? That is, reorder/reproduce point decision. Only those inventory management methods which can answer the two questions can be called inventory management models. Since 20 centery , the major inventory management models which are based on singular enterprise consist of EOQ, MRP, JIT , while VMI is an inventory management model representative of supply chain inventory management.Meanwhile, IT is also developing all the time, and enterprises use IT much more quickly. IT has been an competition tool and completely changed operation and management in enterprises. Because inventory management is consolidated problem which contains purchasing, production and sales, an excellent inventory management model is an "important means for an enterprise to establish persistent competitiveadvantage. Correspondingly, IT has also completely changed organizations, processes, ideas, models and strategics of inventory management. IT and inventory management models urge and change each other.This paper reviews these four models respectively and study them comparatively, the analytical study method of which is based on IT.