Alaska Ocean Seafood, a producer of surimi, uses a 370-ft. factory trawler that catches, processes and freezes fish while at sea. Sailing from Seattle, WA, the trawler spends about four weeks in the Bering Sea before returning to port. Maintenance to its "plant" and production facility while at sea must be accounted for at the headquarters in Anacortes, WA. Likewise, the trawler's purchasing and inventory requests must be tracked in the corporate accounting system.
Maintaining the trawler requires thousands of spare parts -- and thousands of inventory transactions -- each year. "Our inventory transactions are a key part of our financial system," says Dave Crumbo, finance manager with Alaska Ocean Seafood. "The trawler uses very specialized parts from all over the world, and inventory exceeds $2 million."