Relationship Between Inventory Control Practices And Supply Management In Selected Public And Private Universities In Nakuru County, Kenya

Abstract

Supply management is increasingly becoming focus in this 21st century. For an organization to compete and successfully operate in the current dynamic supply management atmosphere, it must apply control measures that are effective within its internal supply management. However, there is an outcry in Universities procurement sector for inadequate stock control. Hence the aim of the study is to establish the relationship between inventory control practices and supply management in selected public and private Universities in Nakuru County.The following objectives guided the study; to establish the relationship between inventory audit and supply management, to examine the relationship between inventory management systems and supply Management, and to determine the relationship between inventory security and supply management in selected public and private Universities in Nakuru County. The study was guided by the following theories; stock diffusion, resource dependency and economic order quantity theory. The study was significant to development of necessary policies in the Universities that would enhance stable and smooth running in supply management. Positivism research philosophy with correlation research design was adopted. Correlation was appropriate for this study because it was used to establish the relationship between the following key variables inventory audit, inventory management systems, inventory security and supply management. The target population of this study was 115 employees drawn from procurement department from Egerton and Kabarak Universities since their headquarters are found in Nakuru County. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select the respondents of the study from the two Universities. Taro Yamane’s formula was used to obtain a sample size of 89 respondents. Data collection was done by use of Questionnaires and it was analysed by the aid of SPSS version 25. Validity of the instrument was realized through incorporating the opinions from the supervisors and reliability was tested using Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient and the value 0.7 and above was deemed reliable. The data was analysed using both quantitative and inferential statistics. Findings revealed that inventory audit were efficiently done through ensuring accuracy in recording. The Universities also ensure that costs were well controlled to reduce waste and mismanagement of resource. The inventory audit was also done periodically to ensure all Universities property and resources are secured. Hence, there existed significant relationship between inventory audit and supply management (r=0.839, P<0.05). Inventory management system adapted inventory coding for ease of tracking. However, the Universities moderately conducted cycles counting and verification as well as replenished stock based on available information in records. Inventory management system somewhat assisted in inventory budgeting. Therefore, there existed significant relationship between inventory management system and supply management (r=0.610, P<0.05). It was also found that the Universities kept records to safeguard Universities’ resources, did inventory inspection to reduce losses of items and stock taking to ensure security of all the inventory. Hence there was sufficient security system to ensure no security bridge. This results indicated that there existed significant relationship between inventory security and supply management (r=0.749, P<0.05). The study concluded that inventory audit, inventory management system and inventory security had significant influence on supply management. The study recommended that Universities had room for elimination of shortage, losses and wastage through periodic inventory audit. The Universities should also adapt electronic inventory management system that can make tracking easy.