INVENTORY CONTROL AS AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR COST CONTROL IN AN ORGANIZATION (A CASE STUDY OF CADBURY NIGERIA PLC).

ABSTRACT The topic of this research work is inventory control as an effective tool for cost control in an organization using Cadbury Nigeria plc as a case study. Inventory control can be defined as the implementation of management's inventory policies in a manner that assures that the goal of inventory management is met. The management of various companies is faced with the problem of at what level inventory should be held in order to have a healthy operation that is optimal stock level that will minimize the cost of stocks the (ordering and holding costs). The researchers objective is to know the effectiveness of inventory control on cost control. In this course of carrying this research work various techniques or methods of data collection were used. They include questionnaires, interviews and observations. A sample size of 73 workers in Cadbury Nigeria ple was also used and was chosen among the number of department/sections of worker using Bowley's proportional allocation formula. The researcher makes use of three hypotheses in this study to analyze the research project. The researcher made used of Z-test in testing the formulated hypothesis. The researcher used the descriptive statistical tools (tables, figures and percentages) in the presenting and analyzing the data generated from this study. From the analysis, the researcher found out that effective management of inventory will help a firm to control its cost and contribute to the actualization of a firm organizational goal. The researcher therefore recommends that organization should apply the technique of inventory control with the objective of cost control so as to enable the goal of profit maximization to be attained.