Introduction
Inventory is the critical resource for any business to run, especially those businesses which run on the raw materials, FMCG items, consumer durable parts, and stocks. Such firms need to manage their inventory all the time to keep executing their sales, marketing, and other operations.
Some inventories are perishable while others can last for years without any wear & tear, or expiry date, irrespective of aging.
Likewise, inventory plays a crucial role in the restaurant business, as their entire activities depend on it. If you’re out of stock- none of the menus can be prepared. And You’ll be all down! A balanced inventory needs to manage if you own or run a restaurant to make sure the food items can be prepared and served anytime if a client asks!
But this is not only about stocking up the inventory. You have to ensure its maximum utilization as well; else, again, there is no fruitful sense of having it. If you consume raw material in your restaurant more than it needs; you will make your business balance sheet negative. Which is why it is not only about inventory stocking, but its utilization to the fullest as well.
So, how you can use automation in your restaurant or Food & Beverage Industry, especially for inventory management, to get maximum out of it?
This eBook is all about it and will help you find methods and tactics related to automation you can use in your restaurant and food & beverage industry.

Why need to maximize inventory utilization in your restaurant business with automation?
Indeed, this is an essential question need to be addressed for the restaurant business because you can’t run things if you don’t have enough or adequate raw materials in your stock. Or you have high priced ingredients, which, if cooked, will cost more than the dish itself! And, you can’t afford either of the situations.
Hence, the question comes of maximum possible utilization of the inventory and how to achieve it with automation?- after all your core purpose of the business is to generate profit and help you grow further! Right?
Inventory in the restaurant business comes with an expiry date. You have to use them before they cross their consumption date. So, you have a limited time for its use. But it doesn’t mean you consume materials more than its needs because it is perishable or about to expire! It is again not the optimum utilization of your inventories.
Apart from this, managing inventories is another task because it's not possible to manually manage stocks, every time before you plan to cook a dish!
Here comes the restaurant automation for inventory management and why it is the most suitable and reasonable for your restaurant? Remember, automation makes your restaurant business operations, mainly inventory utilization, quite easy to execute. Also, it makes inventory management fast and undoubtedly accurate. It is thus improving restaurant performance and overall profit.

Benefits: How inventory utilization can boost with automation?
Well, this can’t be summarized in just one paragraph as this is still the topic of further exploration and research. But here are some of the strong reasons which indicate the positive effect of automation in inventory management & its most possible utilization.
Automation helps you a stock and material management, faster and accurately. You can also ensure error-free stock management and purchases. Also, it saves time in inventory management. Hence, restaurant automation makes such tasks easy & super-quick to execute with just a touch, or click! Isn’t that awesome?
With automation, you can better make decisions like vendor selection and stock purchases. Why is vendor selection is essential? Well, a professional vendor always keeps a fresh stock of raw materials at a reasonable price. These small savings can bring a huge difference in your overall expenses. Apart from this, new raw material helps you keep the food taste better and consistent over a long time. With automation, you can see and calculate the amount of inventory purchased, at what price and with whom! Analysis at this level helps you decide which vendor to chose and why!
Ingredient finalization is another small but very crucial part of a dish cooking. Consumption of food items more than its requirements is going to empty your inventory/ stock, which will lead to its further purchase. Thus, increase your food preparation cost! Automation helps you decide and finalize the number of items needed for a dish and in what proportion! Management of inventory at this level saves your valued raw material and avoids wastage, hence maximize the utilization of it!
Have you overstocked raw material or have inadequate inventory? Well, both situations are not acceptable in a restaurant. Because in either condition,  you will be in loss or not in the state to cater to your customers! So, how to avoid it? Well, again, automation is the key to this solution. With an efficient restaurant management tool, you can better see how much stock is left and when to purchase more so the kitchen keeps running. Also, you can monitor which raw material is in an adequate proposition to help you avoid the further purchase.
Want to see how much material has consumed; when and where (for multi-outlet business)? Well, you can get a detailed analysis report with restaurant automation like Restro Sense. This tool helps you see and generate (if required) the inventory report to analyze and develop better decision-making skills for future purchases and inventory consumption.
Generate less waste with the proper and right use of the inventory. If your restaurant produces more waste than it should; it is quite clear the consumption of material is more than its requirements, or its getting expired without being consumed. In both the situation, you’re increasing your expenses. And, these expenses can affect overall business profit. To avoid this, use restaurant automation or a tool because it keeps track of the entire stock and makes sure you use only the required material for cooking. Thus, it helps you reduce waste produced.

How can you use automation for maximum utilization of your inventory?
This point tells us how you can fix your inventory leakage and make sure you have maximum utilization of it.
  • Use a restaurant management system for inventory management and its utilization. You can try AI-powered, Cloud-based Restro Sense which is capable of doing all the above tasks unlike before in your restaurant, and manages your inventory like a pro! You can control the entire restaurant operations with this tool as well!
  • Use Restaurant automation or Restro Sense for vendor finalization
  • Use ingredient-selection-feature of the restaurant automation or Restro Sense, to make sure you have the best possible utilization of inventory and no excess consumption of raw materials.
  • Avoid overstock of raw material or perishable items. You need not open another shop inside your inventory. Use automation which helps you avoid overstocking. With Restro Sense, you can have this done with an inventory-alarm-system which lets you find raw material which is about to empty or expire! Don’t you think you can now maximize your restaurant inventory with automation?
  • Please keep track of your stock with the reports and its analysis, through automation.
  • Restro Sense helps you in waste management as well, and you can figure out loopholes in the system governing the wastage. You can fix them up and utilize inventory to its fullest!
  • If implemented these suggestions, you can have your inventory optimized like never before, and you’re going to get maximum out of it just with a little help of automation.

Conclusion
Throughout the guide, we noticed that automation seems the future of the restaurant management and how it carefully manages inventory, and its overall utilization. Also, it is clear how much automation is needed if you sincerely want to optimize your inventory consumption and maximize its usage.
Throughout the world, restaurant businesses are using or inclining towards automation for efficient business operations. And, if you have or run a restaurant as a manager, you must look for the best suitable restaurant automation for the fullest utilization of inventory.

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If you have any queries for Restro Sense or want to automate your restaurant business- please contact us.