Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/732012
I DA U N I V E R S A L S e p te m b e r - O c to b e r 2 0 1 6 7 PRESIDENT'S POST Bob Creighton IDA President 2015-17 Dear IDA Members: M ost of us in North America have experienced a very hot summer. For some, however, business has not followed suit. We drive our salespeople to produce more, we challenge our controllers to reduce costs, we plan our sales routes so as not to drive extra kilometers or miles to save fuel. We do all this in an eff ort to increase the bottom line. e client we are chasing is doing the same thing. e contractor used to come in the front door and order 10 teeth, fi ve for the bucket and fi ve for the shelf. Today, he comes in and buys four. Come on, Mr. Customer, we know the bucket takes fi ve teeth. His response is, "I have an extra on the shelf." We all seem to be under pressure to produce just in time. Now, more than ever, we must manage our inventories, keeping them as low as possible without running out of stock. is can be very hard to do with so much of our product coming to us today from overseas. What will happen when business starts to pick up again? Remember, your client has nothing on the shelf. He is confi dent that you will have the inventory he needs, just as you always have in the past. It is not just one client; it is all our clients. Our experience is that none of them are keeping inventory. Did you let your inventories get too low? Can you supply when the economy turns and starts to pick up? What we do not want to happen is to give our client a reason to shop elsewhere. We have to manage our inventories. Now is the time to work closely with your vendors and your vendors to work closely with the distributors. We have to work together to create a tighter just-in-time system. Perhaps it is smaller orders more o en, or we cannot wait for a full can. And every once in a while, we have to ship less than a truck load. Pay a little more in freight, keeping the inventory down and order frequency up. e lesson to be learned here is communication, and what better time to communicate than at an IDA Convention? By the time you read this, it will be less than a month and a half away from our 2016 IDA Convention and Trade Show. e convention format allows plenty of time for productive meetings to discuss issues to help build on already good relationships and to create new ones. It is at our convention in the fall of every year that we elect your offi cials: President, Vice President and Secretary/ Treasurer, as well as your board of directors. I am taking this opportunity to challenge all the members who may be looking to get more involved in the associa- tion. Now is that time. If you are thinking you might like to get involved, speak to any of your elected offi cials and ask what the position entails. Or, if one of us asks if you want to be a director, please listen to what we have to say. We are approaching you because we feel that you can add to our association. We have a great location this year at the Hyatt Regency Long Beach Hotel, located on the port of Long Beach, one of the world's busiest seaports. Come early for the golf tournament or the sight- seeing tour aboard the Queen Mary on Wednesday, October 26. e business meetings and speakers are on ursday, and our trade show on Friday. e long-term weather forecast looks to be good with daytime highs in the mid-70s (25c) and nighttime lows around 60 degrees (15c). California promises to be one of our best conventions yet. Best regards, Bob Creighton President