What are the best practices for managing inventory to ensure accuracy and prevent mix-ups?

Accurate inventory management is the foundation of GDP, and is key to effective traceability and error prevention. Best practices include: 1. **Clear location management**: Assign a unique code to every shelf, level and location in the warehouse, and link product information to the location code in the system. 2. **Status segregation**: Strictly separate inventory with different statuses, both physically and in the system, such as “released goods”, “quarantined goods pending examination”, “returned goods” and “non-conforming goods / goods pending destruction”, and use clear signs to identify each area. 3. **First in, first out / first expiry, first out (FEFO)**: Your Warehouse Management System (WMS) should support the FEFO principle to ensure that products with the earliest expiry dates are dispatched first. 4. **Cycle counting**: Replace the traditional annual full stocktake with ongoing counts of a small proportion of inventory daily or weekly. This helps identify and correct discrepancies earlier, keeping system data accurate. 5. **Batch-level management**: All inventory operations must be managed at batch level to ensure that the movement of every product batch is recorded accurately.