Harmony at TUG CONNECTS 2026

Join Best Practices Inventory Management expert Grant Howard of the Grant W. Howard Company for this 2-part company-changing session on how to maximize your company’s inventory investment impact and ROI, customer fill rate and experience, and gross margin and bottom-line profitability. Best Practices inventory management plays a critical factor in the success of increased revenue, profits and customer experience. Distributors must balance the objectives of top and bottom-line growth with the objectives of customer service and company longevity. Now more than ever distributors must understand the difference between buying and selling inventory versus managing inventory for growth, profit and customer experience.

Many distributors struggle with how to properly manage inventory, what the objectives are and how it all must come together to drive stellar customer experience and maximize bottom line. Many distributors forget that INVENTORY is the reason for their being. Grant will discuss the objectives, the tools and the key processes that allow a distributor to offer stellar customer service while realizing improved returns and increased turns on their inventory investment. Fill Rates, Turns, Freight, Transactional Cost, Surplus and Measurement will be discussed. Big picture – better profits, better service, better company!

Whether your company is getting ready to implement an inventory management process, it already has a solid inventory management process established, or is somewhere in between; you will want to understand and implement these powerful inventory management objectives and concepts. Don't miss this high impact, fast-moving opportunity to take your company's inventory management process to a new level. This session is nonsystem specific; no matter what system you are using, you will want to attend this session.

Grant Howard is a distribution industry expert and authority on “Best Practices” inventory management, operational excellence and smart technology utilization. He is well known for his ability to take real world problems and issues and turn them into opportunities; applying real world solutions that work and drive results. Grant is the conceptual designer of the Advanced Inventory Management (AIM) features and techniques in the SX.e, FACTS and A+ ERP systems.