Inventory of all types is a possible source of waste in organizations. Inventory requires capital investment, storage space, and people to handle and keep track of it. In manufacturing organizations, inventory includes raw material waiting to be processed, in-process inventory, and finished goods inventory. For service organizations, the number of skilled workers available is often the key inventory issue. Extra inventory can result in higher costs with no improvement in performance for an organization. How can we reduce costs associated with the maintenance of inventory? Understanding where inventory is stored in a system is the first step in finding opportunities for improvement. The use of inventory pull systems such as "just-in-time" is one philosophy of operating an organization to minimize the waste from inventory.