About I.M.A. Ltd.
Founded in 1989 by our CEO, James A. Calvert, I.M.A. is a privately owned inventory consulting company headquartered in Tillsonburg, Ontario, Canada. I.M.A. began business by assisting companies to reorganize their Storerooms. Our people were commissioned to go on-site to physically clean, identify and count spare parts throughout a plant. We often assisted in repatriating items to the main Stores and implementing storage bin grid systems, to allocate a unique bin location to each inventory Stores part.
Using a client's past purchase history, along with updated physical counts, I.M.A. was able to analyze inventory movements and purchasing patterns to recommend optimal stocking methods and levels as well as to identify target groups of commodities for rationalization.
While capturing item information and working with the item description data, we began to develop our category/sub-category identifications for common MRO materials. Using manufacturer catalogs, we then standardized item descriptions into noun/modifier/attribute(s) templates and created our own unique industry standard nomenclature Master Library of item descriptions.
Over time our Master Library has grown to more than 1.6 Million items, and we are able to deliver our work in four languages: English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. At the same time, we have developed software tools to allow us to efficiently and effectively clean, standardize and enhance client data to manufacturer specifications.
Gathering information site-by-site, enabled clients to create a common Corporate Catalog of inventory spare parts that could be leveraged across the organization for both purchasing and inventory requirements. Encouraged by our client base, we began to assume an out-sourced catalog management role, synchronizing item description data at each site to the corresponding Corporate master file. Our services soon grew to include Vendor File management as well. Today, several of our clients out-source their Catalog Management requirements to I.M.A.
Now, our work rarely takes us on-site, instead we receive our inventory data electronically. Our years of experience enable us to quickly evaluate a client's data and to estimate a typical ROI for either a data cleaning or inventory analysis project at any site.
Over the years, we have developed solid partnerships with several software vendors. Our work dovetails nicely with implementation of any ERP or EAM system and we greatly value the alliances we have formed. Predominantly, I.M.A. has grown through referrals from our partner and client bases. In 2003, we opened a Sales office in Santiago, Chile to service our South American customers. To date, our business success has been enviable. We look forward to the opportunities that lie ahead.
