Procurement Analysis · Cascade

Paint Reorder Analysis

Source: TrackVia — PO Header General · Window: Dec 15, 2025 – Jun 16, 2026 (trailing 6 months) · Prepared Jun 16, 2026

The concern is real and worth acting on. Painters running short on paint slows jobs, and a proposal has been raised to add 15% to paint quantity on every color to reduce reorders. This analysis looks at what the order history shows so we can land on the most effective fix.

What the data suggests: a flat 15% bump across every color is likely more than the pattern calls for. Paint is reordered on about 23.7% of orders (roughly 1 in 4), reorders are concentrated in a single high-volume supplier, and a portion stem from order-entry errors a quantity buffer wouldn't address. A more targeted approach should reduce shortages at lower cost — the rest of this report lays out where.

23.7%

Paint reorder rate (423 of 1,788 paint POs)

16.8%

Reorders as a share of paint dollars ($123K of $728K)

$109K

Cost of a 15% bump on all paint (6 mo) — vs. $123K total reorder spend

61%

of paint POs flow through one branch (SW American Fork)

1 · Paint type is not a factor

Both paint product lines reorder at essentially the same rate, so there is nothing to fix by switching or adjusting a specific type. Super Satin is the workhorse at ~93% of paint volume.

Paint type	Original items	Reorder items	Reorder share
Super Satin	3,033	671	18.1%
A-100 Satin	226	48	17.5%

2 · Reorders concentrate at one supplier — by volume, not by fault

Sherwin-Williams American Fork handles the majority of paint and therefore carries the majority of reorder dollars. Its reorder rate (19.5%) is below the 6-month average, so it isn't a uniquely bad vendor — it's simply where the volume is, which makes it the right place to tighten ordering practices.

Supplier	Paint POs	Reorders	Rate	Reorder $

Showing branches with 15+ paint POs. Several very-low-volume branches show 100% rates on 1–3 orders — statistical noise, excluded from interpretation.

3 · A few small branches short far above average

Distinct from the volume story, these low-volume branches reorder 40–67% of the time. The dollars are small, but rates that high suggest a systematic under-ordering or process issue worth a direct look:

Branch	Paint POs	Reorder rate
Cascade Warehouse	24	66.7%
SW – Payson	23	60.9%
SW – Saratoga Springs	30	60.0%
SW – West Jordan	18	44.4%
SW – Spanish Fork	32	43.8%
SW – Heber	19	42.1%

4 · What a 15% bump would and wouldn't fix

A natural question is whether a 15% buffer simply pays for itself by eliminating reorders. The two are close in size — but they aren't interchangeable. A bump adds paint to every order; reorders happen on only about 1 in 4, and only the shortage portion could be prevented by ordering more up front.

Cost of a 15% bump — applied to all paint orders$109K

added paint cost (6 mo)

Current reorder spend — what we actually spend today$123K

$83K shortages

$40K plan errors / unlogged

Bump cost spreads across 100% of orders · Reorder spend a buffer could reduce (shortages) · Reorder spend a buffer can't touch

The 15% bump (~$109K / 6 mo) is about the size of all reorder spend, yet it could only ever offset the $83K shortage slice — and only partly, since it also lands on the ~76% of orders that never run short, where the extra paint becomes leftover. Reorder dollars buy paint that gets used on the job; bump dollars are spent up front whether the job needs them or not.

Breaking the $123K of six-month reorder spend down by reason:

Reorder reason	Reorder $ (6 mo)	Would +15% help?
Short — not enough ordered / damaged / stolen	$83,223	Partially — only true shortages
Plan error — ordered incorrectly	$14,830	No — a buffer can't fix wrong orders
No reason logged	$24,598	Unknown — data gap

Spending ~$109K/year on a blanket buffer to offset at most the shortage portion — while over-ordering paint that mostly becomes leftovers — is a poor trade.

5 · Reorder rate over time

The rate has held steady in the low-to-mid 20s% across the window — a persistent baseline, not a recent spike.

Suggested next steps

Consider a targeted buffer over a flat 15% on every color. Paint type doesn't differentiate reorders, so an across-the-board increase (~$109K every six months) adds quantity well beyond where shortages actually occur. Concentrating any buffer where reorders cluster captures most of the benefit at a fraction of the cost.
Start with SW American Fork. It's 61% of volume and ~$91K of reorder dollars; a modest improvement in ordering accuracy there moves the number more than anything else.
Take a look at the high-rate small branches (Cascade Warehouse, Payson, Saratoga Springs, West Jordan, Spanish Fork, Heber) — 40–67% reorder rates suggest a local process worth understanding, separate from paint quantity.
Address the "plan error" path. ~$15K of reorders trace back to incorrect original orders; tightening order entry resolves these directly, which a quantity buffer can't.
Close the data gap. About 20% of reorder dollars have no reason logged — capturing a reason on every reorder would sharpen the next decision.

Methodology: paint identified by line items flagged TYPE: Paint in PO Header General. A PO is counted as a reorder when it carries a reorder-cost-vs-original value or a PO request reason. Rates are PO-level; paint-type shares are line-item level. Window is the trailing 6 months (Dec 15, 2025 – Jun 16, 2026) of 40,418 total PO records exported from TrackVia.