Inventory, how do you keep it?

[AcdNrg]

The more I get into DIY, the bigger the issue grows regarding keeping track of which parts I already have, which I may want to stock etc.

How do you guys track your inventory? I´m looking for something that:

Allows for sorting and drilling down
Has reports on "running low" (or you can filter for that)
Can link multiple sources (mouser, digikey, octopart) to an item (say, 1% 100k resistor)

Preferably open source, on prem, but a little fee and cloud based is ok. Something a hobbyist can use.

Or are you like me getting lost in excel sheets ?

 

[ruffrecords]

Common items like resistors, caps and some inductors I keep in storage drawers similar to these:

https://cpc.farnell.com/raaco/132084/cabinet-organiser-30-compartment/dp/SG32819?st=raaco

Bigger stuff and special parts (e.g. PCBs) for a particular project I keep in labelled plastic boxes.

I find out if I am running low when I look for the component and then I make a note in my Day Book to buy some more.

My Day Book is the most powerful tool I posses.

Cheers

Ian

 

[sodderboy]

Excel sheets? You way ahead of me. I am wiring studios and doing less bench work. I tend to order what I need for a job and hoard the minimal extras. I graduated out of "parts drawers" some decades ago.
I use plastic "shoeboxes" for most stuff, XLR, TRS, MULTIPIN, RESISTORS, HARDWARE, etc.
I am getting a metal drawer/shelf unit 3x7x1 feet that is three drawers wide, 9 rows high for free. 27 drawers will hold business and household "inventory" with room to spare.
If I need some 7K5 resistors, I just hit the RESISTOR shoebox and start looking. . . My pots are in there too. NOT pot!
Prolly time to go through my MULTIPIN bin and toss all the 8-pin mini-DIN Mac SERIAL conns. Not much need for those these days. For most installs we had to make them from scratch "back in the day".
Mike

 

[JohnRoberts]

Back in the 70s I wrote my own (basic) software for inventory management. This century I have used excel spread sheets for tracking parts kits I provided to my contract manufacturer. I have lots of odd reels of SMD components left over from production runs, and project buys.

JR

 

[pucho812]

When I was head of service for some known audio companies and brands, we generated barcodes for every sku item. We then could scan and add into inventory, take out from inventory, etc. it was slick.
now days as I am elsewhere, I keep track with a google doc. It’s more manual data entry but does a decent job of keeping the numbers. If and when it’s off, it’s only by a couple usually

 

[john12ax7]

I'm using a spreadsheet. It can actually be quite powerful. There are inventory templates you can find online, you can take ideas from that and code in things like inventory low warnings and re-order thresholds. This seems fine for a small operation, but I'm also open to ideas from others for a better solution.

 

[john12ax7]

I use plastic "shoeboxes" for most stuff

I like these too, very useful for a lot of things. There is a shelf at home depot that fits these perfectly 9 to a shelf.

 

[cyrano]

I once did a project for a company that sold nuts, nails and bolts and related stuff. Their system was really simple: a cardboard card for every item. It sat prominently in front of the storage drawer or box.

When someone noticed the stock of that part being low, the card was moved to an "to order" stack. Once a week, an order list was made and the cards were moved to the "ordered" stack.

When orders arrived, they were moved to the drawer and the card was placed back.

The inventory was huge, over a million of parts.

The system was so perfect, elegant and simple that my advice was NOT to replace it with a computer setup. Way back then, it would've been a serious investment in hardware, software, training, maintenance and time. It would probably have killed the company.

My boss way back then wasn't too amused. So he redid the numbers, but couldn't prove me wrong. So the project was moved to someone else. He got creative with the numbers in order to prove they should buy our stuff. They didn't. The company still exists even when it's part of a much larger group today. They moved a few years back and just before the move they still were using the card system.

I'm a database person. I used to have a database for parts. I no longer use it, because parts change far too often. Not simple resistors, but I don't really need to know the stock status of resistors. And some caps age, so I don't want too much stock.

I've found out that, in my case, just a .txt document for "special" parts works better. "Special" in this case means parts I don't have many of, like electrical motors, transformers or tape heads. The text documents are kept in a directory structure per brand, together with service manuals, schematics, pics, measurement graphs. Of course, that's not really inventory, but it's what works for me.

 

[AcdNrg]

Lots of good input and a boatload of experience speaking. Thank you!

Looks like I´ll stick to spreadsheets for now, but the idea of scanning is tempting. I wanted to get a bluetooth scanner for all those CDs and vinyls anyway. Will dig into that.

Granted, I don´t track mass parts like standard resistors, but I ran into few situations where I assumed (you know what that means) that there should be some of the alpha B50K in one of the boxes anyway... started soldering and then... build delay for a week or so. Now that I added SMD to the portfolio I find myself quite often tracking a variety of components in a variety of formats, and that´s where things get out of hand.

Out of curiosity: My plan is to create octopart BOMs for the projects I do, as this seems to span mouser, digikey etc. quite easily. Am I headed in the right direction?

 

[user 37518]

Lots of good input and a boatload of experience speaking. Thank you!

Looks like I´ll stick to spreadsheets for now, but the idea of scanning is tempting. I wanted to get a bluetooth scanner for all those CDs and vinyls anyway. Will dig into that.

Granted, I don´t track mass parts like standard resistors, but I ran into few situations where I assumed (you know what that means) that there should be some of the alpha B50K in one of the boxes anyway... started soldering and then... build delay for a week or so. Now that I added SMD to the portfolio I find myself quite often tracking a variety of components in a variety of formats, and that´s where things get out of hand.

Out of curiosity: My plan is to create octopart BOMs for the projects I do, as this seems to span mouser, digikey etc. quite easily. Am I headed in the right direction?

The problem with assigning a Digikey, Mouser, etc.. part number these days is the semiconductor scarcity. I've been in situations in which I will send the PCB manufacturer a BOM and by the end of the week, many of the items which were in stock suddenly become out of stock everywhere in the world and I will have to use a replacement part. Until supply gets back to normal, you will have to use whatever there is available so I wouldn't worry too much about associating a part number for now...

 

[AcdNrg]

I hear you... last week I chased a small BOM for a Eurorack module, barely more than 50 different parts. More ICs than usual though, shift registers, flipflops etc. I ended up getting parts from 5-6 vendors, digikey, mouser, the rest was ebay (of all places). Keeping my fingers crossed that things will improve.