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Logistics & Supply Chain vocabulary · Inventory Management

Inventory

Meaning in logistics & supply chain, with examples

/ˈɪnvəntɔːri/nounCore term

In logistics & supply chain, inventory means: All the goods and materials a company holds at a given time, including raw materials, work in progress and finished products.

In Turkish: stok, envanter

How it is used

Used in planning, finance and warehouse work. You hold, carry, reduce or manage inventory; too much of it is excess inventory. In US English 'inventory' is the normal word; British speakers often say 'stock' for the same thing.

Example sentences

  1. We are carrying too much inventory of slow-moving items.

  2. Inventory levels dropped sharply after the promotion.

Common collocations

  • inventory levels
  • hold inventory
  • reduce inventory
  • excess inventory
  • inventory management
  • SKUShort for stock keeping unit: a unique code for one specific version of a product, so that each size, colour or pack type can be counted and tracked separately.
  • safety stockExtra stock kept on top of expected demand to protect against sudden increases in demand or late deliveries from suppliers.
  • stockoutA situation in which an item is completely out of stock, so orders cannot be filled or production stops until new goods arrive.
  • inventory turnoverA measure of how many times a company sells and replaces its stock in a period, usually cost of goods sold divided by average inventory.
  • cycle countA stock check in which a small part of the warehouse is counted on a regular schedule, so that all items are counted over time without closing the warehouse.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Inventory Management

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