CHAPTER V

Summary, Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations

This chapter highlights the summary, findings, conclusions

and recommendations of this study.

Summary

The research study has adopted the qualitative approach in

an attempt to obtain a more holistic impression of the operations

of the supply office located at Sorsogon State College – Main

Campus. The data included interviews, reports and documents shown

to the researchers with regard to the inventory management system

of the school. The data gathered were sorted out into two

categories, the first category is data on the existing inventory

system and the second category is the perceptions of the end

users.

All the data that were grouped into categories were then

divided into themes that added substance to the thematic analysis

postulated in the research. Highlighted in the discourse are the

four functions of the supply office, which are the procurement

function, the inventory function, the monitoring function and

finally the disposal function, the responses made by the

informants on these functions were divided into positive and

negative to see the difference between each informant and on how

they see the Supply Office.

 (1) please include in the DATA analysis

(2)Intro or linking paragraph statement that leads to you

seeking answers to these SOP

Specifically, the study sought to answer the following:

1. What is the existing inventory management system of Sorsogon

State College – Sorsogon City Campus?

2. What are the perceptions of the informants regarding the

inventory management system of SSC-Sorsogon City Campus?

3. What are the problems encountered in the inventory

management system?

4. What can be recommended to improve the inventory management

system?

Findings

The following were the salient findings of the study:

The Inventory Management System employed by Sorsogon State

College has the following Policies and Procedures:

(3) Summarize your Findings – details should be in Chapter 4

a. The Procurement Process starts with the end-user or

requisitioning who submits a requisition for supplies,

materials and equipment to the Supply Office. The Supply

Office then prepares the Purchase Request, Funding Request

and the Requisition Issue Slip. The purchase request

contains the description, quantity and price of the

requested supplies, materials and equipment and shall be

 signed by the Requisition Officer and the Unit Head or the

Department Head. The procurement documents must be approved

and signed by the Accounting Office including the Budget

Officer, Campus Administrator, the Office of the President.

After being signed and approved by the appropriate

signatories the documents are then forwarded to the Bid and

Awards Committee (BAC) for further action.

b. After the receipt of the procurement documents from the

Supply Officer provided that the documents include the

signature of the said proper officials, the Bids and Awards

Committee Secretary shall issue a Resolution as to Mode of

Procurement. There is a different procurement process for

every Mode of Procurement. The BAC then prepares a Canvas

Form that shall be forwarded to the Head of the Procurement

for its approval. After the approval, the Canvas Committee

Chairman along with the Canvas Committee Members shall

identify potential, qualified and accredited suppliers. Upon

its completion the BAC Secretary shall prepare an ABSTRACT

with the Purchase Order and shall issue a Resolution of

Award along with the Obligation Request (OR). Said documents

with the Obligation Request are forwarded to the Accounting

Office to be approved by the Budget Officer. The documents

are then handed over to the Office of the President for its

approval. Once the documents are approved, both the Records

 Office and the Auditor shall receive a copy of the Purchase

Order before forwarding it to the Supply Officer to serve

the qualified supplier. The awarded supplier shall deliver

all requested items to the Supply Office or the Requisition

Officer shall pick up the supplies and materials. The Supply

Officer together with the Technical Working Group shall

conduct an inspection to determine whether the items have

defects or it is damaged. Upon completion of the inspection,

the voucher is then prepared for payment.

c. The next step is the monitoring phase. The start of the

monitoring phase is the pre-inspection, this done in order

to check which items are still serviceable and which items

are already unserviceable. The Supply Officer along with the

Technical Working Group will be the ones to conduct the pre-

inspection which is normally done every quarter based on the

lifespan of the facility or machinery owned by the College.

If during the pre-inspection or a department head found that

there are facilities or machineries that are damaged, or are

no longer working properly, then a schedule will be set to

repair or conduct maintenance on the machinery or facility.

As part of the monitoring phase, any changes with regards to

the usability of all identified properties shall be

reflected in the property ledger card. The Supply Officer

shall make a schedule for cut-off for turn-over of

 properties and account for liabilities during the signing of

clearance. If the machinery or equipment can no longer be

prepared or the spare parts needed to repair them are no

longer available in the market, then the machinery or

equipment will be disposed. Accomplishment Reports are then

prepared for reference purposes and shall be submitted to

the office of the President.

d. As for Inventory, Property Inventory Tags shall be printed

by the Supply Office and all properties shall be serially

numbered for tracking purposes and for the execution of the

physical count for all inventory supplies and equipment.

Inventory and inspection report for

serviceable/unserviceable materials is reported on

properties that is included in the inventory. The Supply

Officer shall prepare an Inspection and Inventory Report if

the particular property is included in the Inventory and

Waste Material Report. The document shall be forwarded to

the Disposal Committee, Commission on Audit and to the

Office of the President for appraisal, review,

recommendation and approval. Once approved, the supplies and

equipment are removed from the Inventory and the Inventory

Report shall be prepared in 6 copies signed by the Campus

Administrator and the Supply Officer. The Inventory Report

 shall be submitted to the Commission on Audit not later than

January 31 of each year.

e. Disposal is the last phase of the supply management. It is

done by first tracking or identification of the asset

subject for disposal. It is done through physical and

working condition, if it can be fixed or not. Second is the

classification if it is included as waste, surplus or scrap.

Asset disposal is conducted through either Advertisement to

Bid, Negotiation, or Disposal of scrap materials through

negotiation of which the Administrative Support Services

Association Incorporated (ASSAI) and Faculty Organization

(FO) will be given priority. Next is the Issuance of

Resolution for Disposal that will be prepared of the

Disposal Committee that will be passed to the President for

approval. Lastly, the reporting wherein the Accounting

Office and COA furnished the report. The disposed asset is

recorded in the property inventory.

Perceptions of the informants regarding the existing Inventory

Management System of the College.

a. The informant exclaimed that the Inventory Management

System with regards to the procurement process has a set

of controls and policies that are strictly followed by

the Office. The process to approve the purchase request

 takes 1-2 days to be finished before they are sent to

the BAC but it will take a very long time to process the

Purchase Order to return to the Supply Officer to be

able to serve the suppliers. But once the Supply Officer

receive the items, it is immediately sent out normally

within 72 hours.

If there are any damaged equipment, reports are easily

assessed and checked and all disposable inventory goes

through a rigorous process before they are properly

disposed. All inventory items are recorded, labeled and

properly classified in the store room.

But the office lacks in manpower to conduct their every

responsibility throughout the campus. The office is also

responsible for collecting inventory records from other

Supply Offices in other campuses.

b. The informant discussed about the compliances and the

procedures they are doing in the procurement process, he

also mentioned about the controls adapted, specifically

the numerous signatories and the step by step procedure

they mandatorily follow. However, the required timeline

was unable to achieve because of slow process in signing

the procurement documents due to unavailability and

volume of workload of the signatories. He recommended a

solution, with the help of the President, to hire

 experts on the period of pre-canvassing because

requisitioning units are not experts in providing

correct or realistic specifications of their requests

included on their APP and such work requires a lot of

time and effort.

c. One informant states that the Bids and Awards Committee

lawfully follows the standards set by the laws here in

the Philippines with regards to conducting pre-canvas,

the preparation resolutions and the method to select

qualified and accredited suppliers and dealers. And

exclaimed that currently there’s no problem, and they

are able to give their service to clients which are the

students.

d. Existing IMS of the College needs to adapt

computerization to speed up processes and eliminate some

human borne errors in addition to lack manpower of

Supply Office. The informant also said that the system

is slow and ineffective which has delays in the

procurement which causes plans and activities to either

be moved or be cancelled. Also, due to manual system

there are condemned items that are still on the

inventory list and MRed to them that should be removed

because such items are no longer available for use.

e. The informant said that delays occurs because there are

factors that the end-user didn’t consider. And when it

comes to government procedures, delays are anticipated

due to high volume of requests and it is up to end-user

to strategize on how to cope up with that.

f. The 6th informant said on IMS, his participation is

only on requesting, and he only based on the requests of

teachers under him then compare to the previous

templates. When items are MRed to his colleagues he kept

on checking them because it’s worrisome if it lost.

Fortunately, his colleagues are proactive and they

actively report the items they have received.

The informant mentioned that if the IMS of the College

run smoothly then it will have a positive impact, not

only to personnel of the College, but also to its

students.

g. 7th informant said that she observed that SO don’t

maintain much supplies. Nevertheless, she provided some

pointers on how to organize their supplies.

She mentioned that there’s no monitoring as to actual

consumption of supplies which is pivotal on budget

planning, instead they used previous budget.

 In her past 7 years in the College, she never received

good quality supplies. And whatever supplies she’s short

of, she was advised to solicit from others.

h. An informant shares that some personnel has no power to

requests supplies, materials and equipment directly from

the SO because the department head handles all the

requests. Also, he exclaimed that the problem mainly

happens in BAC because it took too long to canvas to the

point where requests are cancelled because it already

lapsed.

i. The last informant said he is not satisfied as to the

current IMS of the College. Supplies for academic year

that are expected at start of the classes 1 st semester

but received and the end of the semester. And he can’t

overstock computer spare parts due to budget constraints

despite the fact that the computers are prone to

breakage.

The following Problems and Difficulties are prevalent in the

Inventory Management System being implemented by the College:

Supply Office

a. Supply Office strictly follows the policies

implemented over IMS from procurement, inventory,

 monitoring, and disposal. But delay in signatories

for approval and such is out of their hand.

b. Suppliers tend to promise to sell products are not

on stock that causes delay of delivery and

sometimes delivered items doesn’t match the

specifications set by the requisitioning unit.

c. Warehouse of Supply Office seem a bit too small to

store large quantities of supplies to furnish the

needs of every department in the campus.

d. Delay in disposal causes overstocking in the

stockroom, items that remain for a long period of

time in the stockroom begin to deteriorate and

start to go down in value. For same reason,

serviceable and unserviceable equipment are stored

in the same room.

e. The Office is also short of manpower despite of

using labour-intensive traditional IMS and

consolidating inventory records from other

campuses.

Bids and Awards Committee

f. Bidding through PhilGEPS sometimes there’s no

participating bidder because of unrealistic

specifications set by the requisitioning unit who

 are not expert on such field and highly relied on

internet searches.

g. The BAC lacks proper communication to end-users.

They are not able to communicate the problems in

the bidding forms, specifically the specifications

set by the end-users.

Requisitioning Units/End-Users

h. One informant emphasized that IMS of the College

need to adapt technology as the current system

poses problems to them and inconvenience.

i. The delay in procurement affects the performance of

the department where activities are sometimes moved

or cancelled due to lack of materials needed.

Therefore, they tend to overstock some supplies

which is sometimes barred because of insufficiency

in the budget.

j. One informant exclaimed that there are condemned

items that MRed to them.

k. Issues on delays on procurement is prevalent that

it makes the end-users to have contingency plans

with regards of such situation and even there are

instances they borrow some supplies from other

departments.
 l. One informant experienced a situation where she

can’t obtain a certain supply which she badly

needed for accreditation from Supply Office even

the purchase order has already been approved for

the reason it is not paid yet.

m. Small items such as common supplies are difficult

to monitor as to its actual usage compared to

equipment which are properly tagged.

n. The end-user does not have enough items which they

can use for their daily activities, in response to

this, some end-users stock up common supplies and

spend their own fund.

o. Lack of spare parts of computers in ICT department

in case some of computer part/s unexpectedly break.

CONCLUSION

Based on the findings, the following conclusions were drawn:

1.The existing Inventory Management System being implemented

by Sorsogon State College is in compliance with R.A. 9184

and adapted the International Standards Operation of

9001:2015. It is fairly effective in preventing fraud and

misappropriation. However, it has setbacks such as delays

because it can’t handle high volume of requests.

2. In connection with the perceptions of the informants,

majority of the Requisitioning Units / End-users are not

satisfied with the existing Inventory Management System

adapted and implemented by the College.

3. The informants provided numerous of information regarding

the difficulties and the problems they had experienced

regarding the existing inventory management system. The

majority of which consists of negative perceptions and

opinions. Some even suggested solutions.

4. The inventory management system needs improvement with

regards to the following aspects:

a. Procurement

The procurement process needs improvement in regards to

the efficiency of its system specifically the actual

amount of time taken to process the procurement,

because it takes a minimum of six months and a maximum

of one year to acquire and distribute all the requests

to the requisitioning units/end-users. There are delays

due to the non-availability of the proper signatories,

the incomplete and faulty specifications being entered

into the APP of the requisitioning unit and the

availability of the duly accredited suppliers.

b. Inventory and Reporting

 The inventory and reporting procedure of the system has

controls set to ensure that there is no

misappropriation of assets. However, because they lack

manpower in the Supply Office, they are unable to

conduct actual and physical inventory of all their

properties.

c. Monitoring

The monitoring procedure is adequate, the Supply Office

together with the Technical Working Group are able to

monitor all the equipment and facilities of the College

on a quarterly basis. They are also able to identify

which items are in need of repair and maintenance.

After being identified, damaged items are immediately

replaced or repaired. The damaged items that can no

longer be repaired are immediately processed for

disposal. However, not all users give reports and

feedbacks in regards to the use as well as the

condition of facilities and equipment given to them.

Department heads also rarely monitor items on a

periodic basis

d. Disposal

The procedure being implemented for the disposal of all

assets is in compliance with the Supply Management

Policy and Procedure Manual used by the school as well

 as in compliance with RA 7160. Items that are no longer

available for use are properly stored in the stockroom

of the Supply Office, waiting to be turned over by the

Supply Officer to the awarded bidder chosen by the

disposal committee. However due to delays in processing

the documents the items are stocked for long periods of

time which causes to lose value.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To actualize the results and conclusions of this research

journey, the researchers highly recommends the following:

1. Refer to the Budget Officer and Accountant to ensure the

availability of the fund for the fast track processing of

procurement process.

2. Require the supplier to submit all documents needed for

accreditation and authorize the Supply Officer to follow up

the legal documents.

3. Follow-up and tracking of the status of procurement

documents to lessen the slow process flow of the procurement

documents.

4. Designate alternate signatories in case of unavailability to

lessen the delay of the transactions.

5. Additional manpower for the Supply Office for conducting

physical/actual inventory of property and other necessary

activities.

6. Immediate reconciliation of accounts with the accounting

section to prevent unreconciled book of accounts.

7. Make a request or proposal for expansion of storage space

for recovered materials and for unserviceable equipment.

Coordinate with the technical personnel of the College for

the plan with regards to the layout of the storage room.

8. Insist for the acquisition of new shelves for the security

and safety of the documents, for proper stocking of supplies

and materials.

9. For SO employees and Supply Officer, continues seminars and

trainings for Property and Supply Management for updates of

proper handling of property and supply.

10. For SO, conduct seminars, trainings, or lectures to

end-users regarding the flow of government procurement

process for them to be aware of their roles and other

related matters.

11. For the College to have the time to conduct a

benchmarking to other state colleges and universities on

matter regarding inventory management to provide the Supply

Office personnel an opportunity to learn and gain new ideas

to improve the existing IMS of the College.

12. Supply Office make a proposal to adapt a dedicated

computerized inventory management system with following

features but not limited to:

a. All forms are downloadable and available to end-users

without the need to visit the Supply Office.

b. Pre-canvassing feature, where its function is to verify

first the items requested before sending to Supply

Office, administered by dedicated group of canvassers.

c. Real-time monitoring of requests by end-users and has

notification feature for change in status of request.

d. Ease sorting of all items through various fields like

by status, by description, by date of

acquisition/disposal and others.

e. Supply Office portal, accessible only by SO employees

or other authorized users:

i. Real-time monitoring of in/out of requests,

supplies and equipment.

ii. Allows to generate all kinds of necessary reports

by the Office.

f. Bids and Awards Committee portal, accessible only by

BAC employees or other authorized users:

i. Update of requests through online.

ii. Allows to generate all kinds of necessary reports

by the BAC.
 g. Online messaging between Supply Office, BAC, and

requisitioning units.

13. In addition to expansion of storage facility of SO,

allow the Office to store common supplies that can provide

the whole Sorsogon City campus for a certain period or in

the discretion of administration of how much quantity it

shall be. Recommended inventory controls:

a. First-in, First-out -this is to ensure that earlier

acquired items are to distribute first, especially in

cases there are items with expiration dates.

b. Activity-Based Costing -items with high usage or

importance are given priority.