ABSTRACT
The development of inventory management is a dynamic activity, with new approaches being made, techniques being refined and new challenges being met. Continuing competitiveness is based on ever improving customer service and ever reducing inventory costs, requiring greater expertise in inventory management. The inventory controller has always to look simultaneously at the long term and the short term, detailed picture and overall plan. The potential in the areas of planning inventory and production still has to be realised. Inventory is kept to near zero by just-in-time kanban suppliers, but many businesses obtain items from far away on long lead time, often in big batches, and therefore have warehouse inventory. Providing items from inventory is not as lucrative as providing a service, so good companies are giving individual offerings to suit each customer. One of the issues facing inventory management is economics. The conventional accounting processes do not provide a good basis for decision making.
