Organisations will hold different items of inventory, for example:
- Manufacturing Organisations – These will have a production inventory which provides the Raw Materials (RM), components and sub-assemblies to be turned into the finished product, Work-in-Progress (WiP) inventories of part finished products and Maintenance, Repair Operational (MRO) for repair and maintenance of production machinery;
- Service Industries – for example an electrical appliance engineer, gas maintenance businesses and local garages that provide a service will tend to be dominated by MRO inventories to support the delivery of the service (e.g. electrical components, piping and tyres); and
- Military – The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) holds inventories of engineering spares, munitions and clothing. Once these products have been despatched to the end user (customer), they then become inventory of the customer until issued to the final user of the product.