Inventory & replenishment

How to calculate sell-through rate, what counts as good, how it differs from inventory turnover, and what to do when a product sells too slowly.

How to calculate open-to-buy for a retail store, with the formula, a worked example, what a negative number means and how to plan by category.

How to calculate gross margin return on inventory, compare categories with a worked example, and use GMROI to decide what to buy, mark down or drop.

How to calculate fill rate and cycle service level, why the two numbers differ, and which one to use when you set safety stock or report to customers.

How to set min and max inventory levels, with the formula, a worked example, spreadsheet formulas and the cases where min-max stops working.

What clear to build means in manufacturing, how to calculate it from a bill of materials, a worked example, and the columns a good report needs.

What material requirements planning is, the three inputs it needs, what it produces, and a week-by-week example of how net requirements are calculated.

Almost every manufacturer has inventory that has not moved in a long time. It takes up space, ties up cash […]

A typical manufacturer has hundreds or thousands of purchased parts, and nobody has time to watch them all closely. ABC/XYZ […]