Demand moves
Yesterday’s sales are already old news when a promotion, season, or channel shift changes velocity.
The real difficulty
Inventory is hard because every number is alive.
A count is not a fact forever. It is a fact for a moment. Sales, receipts, lead times, returns, damage, and human decisions keep moving underneath it.
SKU-318
lead time +3d
demand +22%
count gap
cash tied
01 / Six moving forces
The problem is not one bad count. It is motion in every direction.
Supply slips
Supplier lead times are promises until they become history. One late truck can invalidate the plan.
Counts decay
Every pick, return, damage event, and partial receipt makes the last clean count less clean.
Cash is trapped
Over-order and cash sits on the shelf. Under-order and customers hit empty inventory.
Data fragments
Spreadsheets, carts, ERPs, marketplaces, and notes all describe the same operation differently.
People improvise
Operators make smart local decisions that never make it back into the system of record.
Sale: -12 units
Receipt: +40 units, 8 short
Adjustment: -3 damaged
02 / Why traditional tools fail
They treat uncertainty like an exception. Inventory is uncertainty.
The old tool asks for a clean record. The operation gives it partial receipts, late supplier updates, fast-moving SKUs, and human judgment. Filo is designed for the messy state between "we counted it" and "we know what to do."
Inventory difficultyDemand x Supply x Time x Cash x People
Filo reduces the burden by keeping the signals connected and translating changes into the next action.