Inventory Management: Some Surprising News about Classical Views on Inventory and Some Nonclassical Responses to Traditional Practice

Management of an organization’s inventories would seem to be at (or at least near) the top of the agenda for a firm’s financial managers. On the balance sheet, inventories are close to the top of the list of a company’s assets and are often the largest number on the list. (Plant and equipment dominate primarily in capital-intensive industries.) For small-to medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs), inventory is too often a cause of bankruptcy, giving false claim to the notion of inventory as an “asset.”