| Supplier (or
Vendor) Managed Inventory is a term used to describe a
supply chain arrangement where the supplier, not the
customer, essentially takes responsibility for ensuring a
production process has the most efficient levels of input
raw material. Substantial overall cost savings are possible,
and for major manufacturing companies Smiths recommends such
an arrangement is evaluated. Information Technology plays a
significant part in the set-up and running of an SMI
contract and Smiths uses some of the most technologically
advanced supply chain software to accomplish this.
• Reduce total cost of raw
material supply by consolidating the supply chain and making
it more responsive
• Improve supply
service to customer’s manufacturing centres
• Reduce waste and
increase efficiency by supplying cut-to-size raw material to
customer’ manufacturing
centres on JIT basis
• Provide a
highly-customisable SMI system based on interchangeable
building block concept
• Provide total transparency
to customer in all elements (including open book costing)
• Allow customer to
retain option of complete control over whole process

• Supplier Managed Inventory
(SMI) systems enable a highly efficient raw material supply
chain to be created
• Essentially, an SMI
system can move the responsibility for all aspects of inventory
management to an expert
outside function
• Expertise in all
aspects of purchasing, stocking, processing and delivery
creates cost savings through
efficiency gains
• Smiths Supplier
Managed Inventory (SMI) system is a totally bespoke software
platform created exclusively
for use by Smiths customers
• It is the culmination
of 5 years systems and software development |