Every product needs a well-defined manufacturing strategy and supporting inventory deployment plan. This is an area that needs careful attention, especially as products become more diverse and complex. For items that are engineered-to-order or made-to-order, the assumption is that an inventory deployment plan for those products is irrelevant. This is often not so. How about those raw materials and piece parts that are stocked or vendors stock in anticipation of sales for these products? Certainly, products which are made-to-stock or assembled/configured-to-order need an inventory deployment plan that fully supports the manufacturing strategy. The methodology used to develop the inventory deployment plan and the precision achieved in implementing the plan are critical to effectively executing each product’s manufacturing strategy. 2) Is your inventory record information real time and more than 99 percent accurate? It would seem that everything must have been said on this subject and pro