Inventory Control

While I was in DC, I had my first IKEA experience. Andy, Tanya, and I on Saturday night headed over to the College Park IKEA. After roaming around for a little while, I decided to get a chair. So I head out to the Self-Serve Furniture warehouse to pick up my chair. When I find the where the chairs are stored, there are none available on the ground level--I need the full service furniture. There are some up on the shelf ten feet above my head. So I go to the info tower and request some help. The guy tells me that they don't have any, but they will get a shipment tomorrow. But there are some on the shelf, I tell him. He checks the computer inventory and shows me that there are none available. Again, I tell him that I can see some on the higher shelf. Then he tells me that they can't get the forklifts out for safety reasons. I wonder if it is more than they they can't get the folklifts out because it's 15 minutes until they close, but I don't say anything about that.

It is interesting that their inventory did say they didn't have any available, and so I guess tomorrow's shipment will actually be coming from themselves?

The next morning, I did not go back to the College Park IKEA. I instead went to the Woodbridge IKEA on my way home. They had my chair in stock.

It was interesting comparing the two stores. One called the complimentary stuff you'd use to lash your furniture to you vehicle "Twine" while the other called it "String." One labelled locations in their Self-Serve Furniture warehouse with a number-letter combination (my chair was at 24-D in College Park) but a number-number combination (8-10) in the other. The chair had different inventory numbers at each store. And my pilfered golf pencils were different.