Reconsidering Inventory Rationale

摘要

The main reason for keeping inventory is to save time; that is, it enables a business to provide products or parts in less time than it takes to make or buy them. The technical term for that is decoupling-defined in the APICS Dictionary as "creating independence between supply and use of material." Decoupling commonly denotes providing inventory between operations so that fluctuations in the production rate of the supplying operation do not constrain production or use rates of the next operation. There is a "right" amount of inventory for each item: the minimum required to serve the purpose. Dropping inventory below that optimum amount will result in shortages. Holding any more inventory than required is waste.