Inventories are materials and supplies that a business or institutions carries either for sale or to provide

inputs or supplies to the production process

Customer order decoupling point which determines where inventory is positioned to allow processed
or entities in the supply chain to operate independently. For ex, if a product is stocked at a retailer, the
customer pulls the item from the shelf and the manufacturer never sees a customer order. Inventory
acts as a buffer to separate the customer from the manufacturing process.