This unit is designed to focus on the inventory management practices and techniques and their effect on the performance of the supply chain. It relates the inventory strategy to the alleviation of problems encountered in operations in real world business today. The key concepts addressed are the strategic role of inventory, the rational of inventory related activities, the framework of basic inventory decisions, the sequence of the inventory activities, inventory procedures, documentation and records, inventory and information systems, maintaining and assuring the quality of inventory, matching supply with demand, inventory as both tangible and intangible object, Inventory as money, Physical location and control of inventory, automatic identification, Planning and placement concepts, Why inventory systems fail and how to fix them, basics of codification, basics of bar coding, protecting inventory, inventory management policy in shipping firms, inventory on ships, management of dead stock inventory on ships.