Daniel Broers

Problems in Industrial Technology

Professor Kanakala

DIRECTV Inventory
Management
At DIRECTV it is a daily and constant struggle to keep all the equipment used by
technicians in the field accounted for and in compliance. The technicians are held accountable
to keep their inventory that they check out from the warehouse accounted for and matching to
what the warehouse consumption reports state. Once a week they come into the office to
check out equipment for the entire week. They are also given an inventory printout for what
they should have existing on their bucket in order to check to make sure everything matches.
They are at that point required to rectify it if it is not matching. At the end of every month the
warehouse and technicians undergo an inventory count. If anything does not match what the
consumption reports state, questions are asked and personal are held accountable. It seems
like every month we deal with counts being off and are constantly scrambling to figure out why.
Usually it comes down to the technicians not closing line items via their handheld correctly and
not rectifying it with management. There are many of the technicians whom we have no issues
with, but some it is a reoccurring event that they are off at the end of the month.

Daniel Broers
Problems in Industrial Technology
Professor Kanakala

It is a struggle daily because the technicians have control over what consumes off of
their trucks. They close line items via their handhelds on each job. If they forget and close a
certain line item when it should have been deleted or vice versa it throws there count off.
The technicians are held accountable by having truck counts. Every Thursday each
technician is issued an inventory list of what they should have on their trucks compared to
what they consumed via their handheld on the jobs for the previous week. If during the weekly
inventory truck count it is discovered that their count is off it is their responsibility to let their
supervisor and the warehouse manager know of the situation. They are given immunity at
that point because accidents happen. The warehouse manager can fix the issue if discovered
early enough. At the end of each month each technician has their truck physically counted by
their field supervisor for all serialized equipment. If the technician has a mismatch at that point
it is irreversible and the shop has to buy the equipment and it comes off the bottom line
budget. If it gets to this point and depending on if the technician is a repeat offender,
disciplinary action is usually taken.
The consumption report is a system generated report printed by the warehouse
supervisor that lists all serialized equipment that is still on-truck for each technician. If the
tech consumed a serialized piece of equipment on a job via their handheld in the form of a line
item it will not show any more on the consumption report.
The once-a-week truck counts are an expectation for all technicians. We have an all-in
meeting every Thursday. All technicians are required to be to the shop by 6:45am to listen to
me ramble about issues both negative and positive, get their equipment for the week, and
complete their weekly truck counts among other duties.

Daniel Broers
Problems in Industrial Technology
Professor Kanakala

During the weekly truck counts, if the technicians find discrepancies in their inventory
counts they have an opportunity to get it fixed before the end-of-month count. The truck count
at the end of the month is absolute. DIRECTV policy is that all serialized equipment is 100%
accounted for. Management is involved in this process. Each technician during the month end
count has to have their truck or van counted physically by either their field supervisor or by the
warehouse supervisor. The results are then brought to the Site Manager.
Every technician is issued a company owned multi-media device in which they can see
their hobs and obtain signatures for each customer. They have the ability to consume line
items and close work orders via this handheld. It is a Samsung Note 2 which is locked down
with DIRECTV proprietary software.
The numbers of variances is usually very low. Out of thousands of parts issued each
month usually only 10-30 end up unaccounted for at month end truck count. This might seem
like a very small percentage, but like I said earlier DIRECTVs policy is 100% compliance. Out of
30 techs usually about 5-8 have unaccounted serialized pieces of equipment.
On Tuesday mornings a FedEx semi-trailer shows up to our local office with enough
equipment for all the technicians for a weeks worth of installs and one weeks worth of
surplus. Our warehouse supervisor Darren Bradley unloads equipment with forklift, organizes
the pallets and receives both the serialized and non-serialized into inventory. On Wednesday
mornings Darren runs an inventory report for each technician that tells him how much
inventory to pull for each tech. He combines them with the non-serialized check out sheets the
technician turns in by Tuesday at noon. Darren first lays out a pallet for each technician and
pulls non-serialized equipment and stacks it on each pallet according to what they ordered on

Daniel Broers
Problems in Industrial Technology
Professor Kanakala

the non-serialized check out sheet. Darren then pulls serialized parts per technician via the
inventory reports and stacks them on top of the non-serialized parts and places both sheets on
top of the inventory pile. Darren accesses the inventory portal and scans each receiver issued
to each technician along with all non-serialized parts. A report with all equipment on truck is
issued to each technician and set on top of the inventory pile. On Thursday morning each
technician checks his pile of equipment to make sure it matches the inventory report set on top
of the pile, signs it, then turns in the paperwork and loads the equipment into his truck. After
loading the equipment, each technician via a weekly total on truck inventory report checks to
make sure he has all of the equipment listed on the report. This report is separate from the
report signed by the technician earlier. If the technician discovers any discrepancies at this
point, they go to their field and warehouse supervisors and figure it out and get the discrepancy
resolved. This is their opportunity to resolve inventory discrepancies before the main inventory
count at the end of the month. All of the technicians on my team: Pono, Eric, John, Doug, Ty,
Scott, Devin, Danny, Josh, and Mike then head out to start completing jobs and consuming
inventory. DIRECTV Corporate then decides based on how much equipment was given out on
the previous week, how much equipment to send the local warehouse in order to keep a
running surplus of one week on truck and one week in warehouse.