Every small manufacturer I've worked with has the same inventory story. Someone reaches for a part, it isn't there, and suddenly we're paying for overnight shipping and pushing a job back. The fix usually proposed is a spreadsheet with reorder points. The problem is that nobody on the floor is looking at a spreadsheet when they grab a part.
So we made the reorder point physical. For each item, we set a safety stock level and taped it off with red tape. Above the tape, use what you need. Break the tape, and it's an emergency: that item gets reordered now.
Simple, visual, and nobody has to remember a number.
The tape was only half of it. The other half was training. Everyone who touches inventory was trained to own the restock, not just the purchasing person. If you break the tape, you flag it. Ninety days after we put the system in place, emergency orders and stockouts were down 40%.
The lesson isn't really about tape. The best systems put the information where the work happens, and they make the right action the easy one.
Taylor Ehlmann is an operations leader and ISO 9001:2026 Lead Auditor who writes about building processes and teams that keep getting better. More about Taylor