It’s been pointed out to me that this analogy doesn’t go very far; the characteristics of physical inventory in manufacturing are different, not least because excess inventory can be sold and there’s an upper limit on how much can be stored.

Nonetheless, I think there often are costs associated with maintaining software inventory, and it’s worth being aware of them.

Later chapters of The Goal use a definition of “inventory” which makes the analogy clearer and means we don’t need to rely on a direct analogy between physical inventory and “software inventory”. Stay tuned!