A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF STORES IDENTIFICATION AND CODIFICATION PROCEDURE ON EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE STORES OPERATION OF MANUFACTURING COMPANY{A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIAN BOTTLING COMPANY PLC. ILORIN.}

CHAPTER ONE

1.1     INTRODUCTION

          Store is being described as any space reserved and equipped for holding stocks, waiting for dispatch to customers for further processing or for further use. The word store can also be used to means inventory (materials). The responsibility of physical situation and condition of materials and issuing when required has with the store man and his department and storage facilities must be adopted to suit the types of materials handle.

          However, for the store to carry out its operation effectively there must be an effective ways of identifying materials. Codification is an organization ways or method of identifying materials to give room for uniformity in the description of the items concerned. It is important to point out, that the success of any stock control systems depend on an efficient coding of materials, although there are many alternatives methods by which this can be enhance, the following are illustration of the case.

1. Alphabetic code e.g ABC, DEF etc
2. Numerical code e.g 0123, 5710
3. Alphanumerical code e.g A102, B2DF etc
4. Colour code e.g for iron, red, blue, colour for steel
5. Memonic code e.g choosing symbols which us of there meanings.

1.1     HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF NIGERIANS BOTTLING COMPANY PLC

The Nigerian bottling company plc, came into existence on many 8^th 1886, when the late A.G levenites founded the company. It was the first in this country to be offered franchise by an international “soft drink firm” from a humble beginning as a family business. The company has grown to become a predominant bottling of non-alcoholic beverages in Nigeria.

The first plant, which was cited in lagos state, went into operation in march 1953. Coke was the first soft drink to have its own designed shaped bottling which was different from the common trade bottling. In 1972, the company went public by the issue of 372,580 ordinary shares of sokoto each. This was in compliance with the Nigerian enterprise promotion dearer of 1972.

Some years after the Ibadan plant was opened (but later shut down due to non-availability of good water in Ibadan metropolis). Ilorin plant was mainly established to meet the needs of the people in bida, jebba, Ogbomosho, okera, Oshogbo, kontagora, ijagbo, offa, lokoja and Ilorin metropolis the Ilorin plant has 8 managers.

The range of soft drinks bottling by Nigerian bottling company plc (NBC, Ilorin plant produces the following soft drink; fata orange, coke, sprite krest, bitter lemon, ginger ale and eva water in terms of sales, the company enjoys a wide acceptance of its produces. Ranking Nigerian bottling company plc, as a whole its performance is highly appreciated.

The company presently has 13 bottling facilities and over 80 distribution warehousing located across the country. Since production started, Nigerian bottling company plc, has remained the largest bottling of non-alcoholic beverages in te country is terms of sales volume with about 1.8 billion bottling sold per year.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

          There are some problem being encountered by the organization under the study in the area of coding and identification of materials. Firstly, variety of materials in use in the organizatio0n are not standardized, this makes it very difficult to have uniformity in the description of the items.

          Also, the store section of the company under study does not have standard store vocabulary to aid easy. Identification of different materials, consequently, there is adoption of different code for identified users.

          Another major problem facing the stores function of the organization is the lack of uniform and coherent stores policies. This is because the adoption of departmentalized system of stock holding.

Furthermore, there is lack of co-operation between the purchasing inventory control and store department, leading to duplication of effort.

Finally, the store personals are not adequately trained to meet the modern challenges of the stores operations.

1.3     AIMS AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

          This research work was writing in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of higher national diploma (HND) certificate in purchasing and supply award by department of purchasing and supply, institute of finance and management studies Kwara state polytechnic, Ilorin.

          Furthermore, the research work was conducted to enable the researcher to have a comprehensive knowledge on store identification and codification procedures as it effects the stores operations of manufacturing company.

1.4     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

          Apart from the specific relevance of this project work to Nigerian bottling company plc. This study will work also be relevant to other manufacturing organizations. It will enable them to understand the importance of identification and codification procedures on effective and efficient stores operation.

          The project work will serve as a good reference point to student of purchasing and supply and student of other relevent discipline as well as future researcher writing a similar topic.

1.5     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

          The scope of the study will cover, the impact of identification and codification procedure on effective and efficient stores operation of manufacturing company.

          In the course of this study, the following areas will be examined the features of a good coding system, methods of coding codification. Characteristic of efficient coding system approaches to codification coding symbol and its interpretation, the advantages and disadvantage of coding will be highlighted.

          The scope of the study will be restricted to Nigerian bottling company plc (NBC) Ilorin Plant.