Inventory count prioritization

The Inventory count prioritization table is accessible from Master data > Parts > Inventory count > Inventory count prioritization.

Its purpose is to help determine which kanban loops should be inventoried first, enabling a targeted inventory process and avoiding random or ineffective checks.

Not all loops carry the same risk of error: some may show signs of misalignment caused by lost cards, lack of FIFO logic, irregular consumption or operational mistakes.

The Inventory count prioritization table automatically analyzes the actual behavior of kanban loops and generates a Priority indicator, so that loops with the highest likelihood of discrepancies or anomalies appear at the top of the table.

Priority indicator

To calculate the priority ranking of the loops, each loop is assigned a Priority indicator, computed by an algorithm that combines the following indicators:

• Overtaking indicator
• Maximum indicator

These are weighted respectively with:

• Overtaking indicator weight (Default value: 60)
• Maximum indicator weight (Default value: 40)

The weights can be modified from Settings > Company settings > Inventory. The sum of the two weights must be 100.

How the Priority indicator is calculated

The Priority indicator is calculated as follows:

Priority indicator = (Overtaking indicator) * (Overtaking indicator weight) + (Maximum indicator) * (Maximum indicator weight)

The ranking displayed in the table is sorted by default in descending order of Priority indicator, so that loops with the highest priority are shown first.

Overtaking indicator

The Overtaking indicator measures, for each loop, how many cards in "Full" status have been overtaken compared to the total number of cards in "Full" status.

The higher the Overtaking indicator, the more critical the impact of overtaking in the considered loop is.

What is an overtaking?

An overtaking occurs when FIFO is not respected and a card is used before older cards belonging to the same loop. This behavior is one of the strongest indicators of physical issues in the kanban system and may be caused by lost containers, missing material, operational errors or physical/system misalignment.

How the Overtaking indicator is calculated

To calculate the Overtaking indicator, the FIFO Report is considered. Cards in Full status are analyzed for each loop, selecting those with an overtaking percentage > 50% and calculating their ratio over the total number of Full cards in the loop.

Overtaking indicator = (number of full cards with % overtaking > 50%) / (total of full cards)

Maximum indicator

The Maximum indicator measures how severe the worst overtaking recorded for a loop is.

The Maximum indicator does not consider frequency (like the Overtaking indicator) but the impact of the overtaking.

To calculate the Maximum indicator, all overtaking percentages greater than 50% for cards in "Full" status of a loop are considered and the maximum overtaking percentage is identified.

The resulting value is then normalized: values between 50% and 100% progressively increase the score from 0 to 1, while values above 100% are capped at 1.

Normalization

Normalization is used to:

1. prevent extreme cases from distorting the ranking (an overtaking of 250% is not necessarily more severe than one at 100% and without limits a single anomalous case could push a loop to the top of the ranking even if it is generally stable)
2. make loops comparable on the same scale (0–1)
3. adjust the severity (between 50% and 100%, the score increases linearly, while from 100% onward, the issue is already considered critical)

How the Maximum indicator is calculated

Let x be the maximum % overtaking obtained from the FIFO Report for a given loop.

Maximum indicator (x) = 0                      if x ≤ 50%
Maximum indicator (x) = [2(x - 50) / 100]      if 50% < x < 100%
Maximum indicator (x) = 1                      if x ≥ 100%

Supporting indicators

Multiple loops may share the same Priority indicator value, so the table can be further filtered and sorted using additional supporting indicators.

Available supporting indicators are:

• Number of days
• Estimated consumed cards
• Consumption discrepancy
• Inventory cost

Number of days

The Number of days indicator allows, given the same Priority indicator, to prioritize loops with a higher number of days since the last inventory or since the date when the card was set to "Full" (if it has not been inventoried).

Using this additional sorting helps prevent loops that have not been inventoried for a long time from remaining at the bottom of the list and ensures a balanced rotation.

Number of days = today() - last_inventory_date      if last_inventory_date ≠ null  
Number of days = today() - last_status_change_date  if last_inventory_date = null

If none of the cards in a loop has ever been inventoried, the most recent last status change date of the loop will be considered. If cards within the same loop have different last inventory dates, the most recent last inventory date will be considered.

Estimated consumed cards

The Estimated consumed cards indicator represents the number of cards that are expected to have been consumed since the last inventory (or since the last "Full" date, if any card in the loop has not been inventoried yet), based on the historical average consumption of the loop. It helps determine whether the current number of cards in stock is consistent with the expected consumption.

For the computation of the Estimated consumed cards indicator, the Number of days indicator is used.

If the system expects high consumption but stock levels are still high, there may be obsolete material, sizing errors, or cards not being consumed correctly. However, this situation may also be normal, for example when card replenishment is very fast and keeps stock levels high despite consumption.

Estimated Consumed Cards = (average_consumption * number_of_days) / quantity

Consumption discrepancy

The Consumption discrepancy indicator is calculated as the percentage difference between average consumption and maximum daily consumption and represents how stable the consumption is.

Stable consumption tends to generate a more predictable material flow, facilitating a more orderly FIFO management, although not guaranteeing it automatically. On the other hand, irregular consumption (e.g. with strong peaks) can quickly empty containers, increase the risk of stockouts and cause unintended overtaking.

Consumption discrepancy = ((average_consumption - max_consumption) / max_consumption) * 100

More specifically:

• Value close to -100%: indicates highly irregular consumption, characterized by significant peaks and long periods of low or no consumption. In these cases, the material flow is difficult to predict and the risk of stockouts increases.
• Value close to 0%: indicates stable and regular consumption, with minimal differences between average and maximum consumption. This supports a smoother and more controlled FIFO management.
• Positive values (> 0%): this typically happens when recent consumption is lower than historical levels or when the selected time window is not representative. The smaller the maximum daily consumption is, the greater the discrepancy will be.

Inventory cost

The Inventory cost represents the economic value of the material currently available for the considered loop.

This parameter translates an operational risk into an economic impact, identifying loops that hold more capital and deciding whether to prioritize inventory checks on high-value loops.

Inventory cost = quantity × number_of_full_cards × statistical_cost

The Statistical cost field (i.e. the cost to store one unit of material) must be correctly filled in the component master data, otherwise the total inventory holding cost will not be displayed. To add or modify it, go to Master Data > Parts > Parts list > Edit part.

Exclusion of recently counted kanban loops

The Inventory count prioritization table analyzes all kanban loops included in the FIFO Report.

However, after an inventory count, it is not useful to immediately re-prioritize the same loop: the system has already been physically verified and the likelihood of errors is lower.

For this reason, recently counted loops are removed from the prioritization table.

KanbanBOX supports two inventory modes:

Continuous inventory
Cards are progressively checked during normal operational activities.

Periodic inventory
Inventory is performed during dedicated sessions (e.g., monthly or extraordinary counts), where loops are checked systematically.

In Settings > Company Settings > Inventory > Exclude from the prioritization table the loops that were inventoried, it is possible to choose different exclusion criteria for counted loops.

Exclusion criteria

Criterion	Description	When to use
In current inventory (default for periodic inventory)	Loops that have already been counted in the ongoing inventory count are removed from the prioritization table.	Periodic or large-scale inventories where each loop is checked once per inventory count.
In the period within which the reading is considered duplicate (default for continuous inventory)	Excludes loops counted within the double-reading time window configured for the continuous inventory.	Production environments where operators perform frequent checks during normal activities and inventory is continuous.
In the last N days	Automatically excludes loops that have been counted in the last N days, calculated backward from the current date. If selected, the Number of days parameter must be defined.	Cyclical or continuous inventory when you want to avoid rechecking the same loop within a short time and distribute checks over time.
After a specific date	Excludes all loops counted after a manually defined date. This date acts as a reference point from which the ranking starts considering loops again.	After full warehouse inventories, extraordinary counts, or complete system realignments.

Manual prioritization

If needed, it is possible to manually override the priority of one or more loops.

To assign a manual priority, simply click the Toggle priority status button in the loop row: this will activate the priority flag . To deactivate it, click the same button again.

Loops marked with manual priority are automatically moved at the top of the table, before those suggested by the prioritization algorithm, and are sorted among themselves by their Priority indicator in descending order.

The priority is automatically removed when cards get added to an inventory.