INVENTORY MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS OF SPECTACLE FRAMES AT THE NAVAL OPHTHALMIC SUPPORT AND TRAINING ACTIVITY

The Defense Health Agency (DHA) has challenged each of its subordinate organizations through several initiatives to reduce costs while delivering world-class medical care. As a step toward the DHA’s cost-saving initiative, this thesis analyzes the current inventory management and recommends suitable inventory models for DHA’s largest eyewear production organization, Naval Ophthalmic Support and Training Activity (NOSTRA). This unique organization carries the most extensive inventories of lenses and spectacle frames. NOSTRA provides eyewear to all service branches, retirees, and other eligible personnel. This project evaluates 141 spectacle frame types across two fiscal years, 2017 and 2018. The analysis reveals that NOSTRA uses a combination of the periodic review and continuous review models. NOSTRA also uses three separate information technology systems, which makes it challenging to accurately forecast demand and track inventory. The findings indicate that NOSTRA can benefit from inventory management models and substantially reduce its inventory and cost. The results of this analysis recommend that NOSTRA incorporate the economic order quantity model and ABC analysis, and utilize the joint ordering strategy. Furthermore, management can extend the frame-of-choice replacement policy to the end of the suppliers’ contract year to capture more potential savings.http://archive.org/details/inventorymanagem1094564133Lieutenant, United States NavyLieutenant, United States NavyLieutenant Commander, United States NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited