Abstract:
Supply management is increasingly becoming a focus in this 21st century.
For an organisation to compete and successfully operate in the current risky
supply management atmosphere, it must apply control measures that are
effective within its internal supply management. The supply management
environment today is characterised by many risk factors that may have a
negative impact on the inventory control operations of an enterprise.
However, there is an outcry in the universities procurement sector for
inadequate stock control. The paper aims to establish the relationship
between inventory audit and supply management in public and private
universities in Nakuru County. The study was guided by stock diffusion. The
study adopted a correlation research design. The target population of this
study was 115 employees drawn from the procurement department from
Egerton and Kabarak University since their headquarters are found in Nakuru
County. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select the respondents of
the study from the two Universities. Taro Yamane’s formula was used to
obtain a sample size of 89 respondents. The data were analysed using both
quantitative and inferential statistics. Findings revealed that inventory audits
were efficiently done. This was improved by ensuring accuracy in recording.
The universities also ensure that costs are well controlled to reduce waste and
mismanagement of resources in the universities. The inventory audit was also
done periodically to ensure all university property and resources were
secured. Hence, there existed a significant relationship between inventory
audit and supply management (R = 0.836, P<0.05). The study concluded that
inventory auditing had a significant influence on supply management. The
study recommended that the universities had room for the elimination of shortages, losses and wastage through periodic inventory audits. The
universities should also adopt an electronic inventory management system
that can make tracking easy.
