What is Truck Replenishment?
Inventory Replenishment is the process of restocking the items that a technician has used from their existing truck stock while performing a job.
What Should be on the Truck?
The truck your technician drives each day does more than just get them from job to job, their truck is also an inventory warehouse-on-wheels.
Each truck has an Inventory Template assigned to it. The Inventory Template is a list of items that are stocked on that truck and also defines the minimum and maximum quantity of each of those items that are kept on-hand.
Different templates are created and assigned to trucks depending on what the truck is most commonly used for. Templates are created for HVAC or Plumbing Service, HVAC or Plumbing Install, as well as other specialty needs such as IAQ or Warranty work.
How Do We Know the Truck Needs to be Restocked?
When a technician uses inventory items from their truck while performing a job, the items are considered “consumed”. These consumed items are added to the job invoice in ServiceTitan and are reflected as part of the cost of performing the work. When a part is consumed, the current "on-hand" quantity of that item is reduced.
As a tech consumes materials from their truck, if the remaining on-hand quantity of that item falls below the minimum quantity defined in their truck’s template, the item is added to a Replenishment List. This Replenishment List identifies which items, and in what quantity need to be restocked to the truck.
Note: In cases where materials that will be consumed are added to the invoice before the job has started, the items will not appear in the replenishment list for restock until the job has started. This helps you ensure that if a job is canceled before it starts, you are not replenishing items that weren’t used.
How is the Replenishment List Used to Restock the Truck?
The process of acquiring the items needed to restock a technician’s truck can be automatically started using the Replenishment List in one of two ways, depending upon the type of warehouse used by the line of business or branch:
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Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI)- If using an onsite vendor, a
Purchase Order will be created and submitted to the vendor to order the materials to restock the truck.
•
Consignment Warehouse- If you have a Consignment Warehouse onsite, an
Inventory Transfer will be created to move the required quantity of items from the existing stock in the Consignment warehouse to the tech’s truck. This same process will be followed if restocking from existing (non-consignment) warehouse stock.