Where is the stock?
Look at stock by item, location and customer demand.
The total value of inventory tells you how much cash is tied up. It does not tell you whether the right items are available for the orders you have promised. Separate stock that is moving from stock that is ageing, and compare availability with the demand each location needs to serve.
Take a sample of late orders. Was the required item unavailable everywhere, held at another site, awaiting inspection or recorded incorrectly? Each answer points to a different decision. Moving stock, correcting a record and changing a buying policy are different actions.
What drives replenishment?
Review demand signals, lead times, batch sizes and planning settings.
Replenishment decisions can outlive the assumptions that created them. A minimum order quantity that once suited demand may now create excess. An understated lead time may leave planners reacting to shortages. Frequent schedule changes can also encourage teams to build protective stock without resolving the uncertainty underneath.
Compare a few recent purchase or production decisions with actual consumption. Ask what triggered the order, which assumptions were used and who can change them. Review excess and shortages together so that reducing one does not simply make the other worse.
Where do orders stall?
Trace delays through availability, production, picking and dispatch.
Having stock is only part of delivering an order. Material may be waiting for a production slot, a finished item may be difficult to locate, or an order may miss a dispatch cut-off. Follow the order from the customer promise to departure and record where it waited, why it waited and who could resolve the hold.
Bring planning, production, warehouse and customer service colleagues into the same review. Agree a small number of actions with named owners, then check both inventory and delivery measures. The aim is a more reliable flow of the right stock to the right demand.