Walk through almost any factory or warehouse and you may find two scenes playing out at once:
On one end, planners are chasing shortages, escalating supplier calls, and adjusting production schedules to keep lines running. On the other, racks and storage rooms are filled with materials that no one has touched in weeks.
Finance sees record-high inventory, while operations see record-low availability. It’s a paradox that feels impossible: how can a company be overstocked and stocked-out at the same time?
At Intuiflow, we see this pattern almost every time we connect a new client’s data. When we visualize their supply and demand behavior, the imbalance appears immediately. Some items are sitting deep in the red—chronically short, creating daily disruptions. Others are well beyond their targets, tying up cash with little impact on service.
The result is a “bimodal inventory distribution”: two distinct peaks on the same curve. One group of materials is starved for attention, another is drowning in it.
The first time a planner sees that curve, there’s usually a moment of silence. It confirms what many have felt intuitively for years—that their problems are systemic, not personal. And it challenges a long-held assumption: that inventory problems can be solved by chasing precision in forecasts.
How Forecast Logic Created the Split
The bimodal pattern isn’t a mystery; it’s the predictable result of how most planning systems are designed to behave.
Most ERPs still run on forecast-driven MRP logic—pushing materials through the supply chain based on predictions, not on real consumption. Every small forecast error ripples downstream, and each attempt to correct it creates new noise. The more planners intervene, the less the system’s logic reflects reality, until it’s maintaining balance on paper while flow collapses in practice.
Safety stocks, often set once and rarely reviewed, fail to absorb that volatility. High-runner items consume their buffers faster than the system can react, while slow-movers accumulate surplus because reorder points don’t adapt.
Planners, seeing the disconnect, override the plan to “help” it, but those overrides mask the root cause and create micro-systems of logic unique to each individual. What’s left is a patchwork of quick fixes—a structure that looks controlled but is actually amplifying variability.
On paper, the total inventory value looks acceptable. In reality, it’s split between items that move too fast and items that barely move at all. The company ends up paying for both shortages and surpluses at the same time.
The Costs of Imbalance and Split Inventory
A bimodal inventory isn’t just inefficient; it’s expensive.
Operationally, planners spend hours every day managing exceptions that shouldn’t exist—rescheduling production, chasing suppliers, and firefighting to cover missed materials. Each change ripples across departments, forcing last-minute labor and logistics adjustments.
Financially, the imbalance locks working capital in slow-moving or obsolete stock, while the parts that actually limit throughput remain under-protected. Companies spend more to move less, eroding both margin and service reliability.
We once worked with a mid-size manufacturer that had been increasing inventory for years in an effort to “improve service.” Yet on-time delivery kept falling. When their data was visualized, the picture was clear: roughly half of their items were well below target, half were far above it. The issue wasn’t lack of investment; it was misalignment. Once the inventory was repositioned to where variability occurred, service stabilized and total stock began to drop naturally.
It’s Not About How Much You Hold—It’s Where You Hold It
The instinctive reaction to excess inventory is to cut it. But most companies don’t suffer from too much stock they suffer from stock in the wrong place. Reducing total inventory without understanding its distribution simply shifts pain points around the network.
The smarter move is to rebalance, not reduce.
By repositioning inventory at the points of greatest variability—long-lead suppliers, unstable demand, or complex production steps—planners create buffers that absorb uncertainty before it spreads. Lead times shorten, firefighting decreases, and service improves even if the overall quantity of stock remains constant.
In other words, inventory is not the enemy; misplaced inventory is. The goal isn’t to hold less, but to hold it where it protects flow instead of distorting it.
The Moment Visibility Changes Everything
The real breakthrough comes when planners can actually see this split.
Traditional ERP reports flatten everything into averages and static metrics. A flow-based dashboard, by contrast, exposes the true shape of inventory health across thousands of items. You can immediately identify which materials are in critical condition, which are stable, and which are far beyond target.
That visibility changes the conversation. Instead of debating forecast accuracy, teams can focus on the structure of the system: where buffers should sit, how priorities are defined, and how parameters adjust over time. The discussion moves from blame to design.
And the first improvement isn’t necessarily lower inventory—it’s stability.
Production schedules stop swinging. Meetings get shorter. Planners regain time to work on improvements instead of emergency calls.
How to Tell if You Have a Bimodal Inventory Problem
You can spot the pattern with a quick diagnostic:
- Export your current stock levels by item.
- Tag which ones have required repeated expediting in the last month and which ones have been untouched or over target for weeks.
- Count how many fall into each category.
If both groups represent more than roughly a quarter of your portfolio, you’re likely dealing with a bimodal distribution. The numbers may look fine in total, but your flow is unbalanced.
But recognizing that imbalance is the first step to fixing it.
Seeing It Is Step One. Fixing It Is Step Two.
Spotting a bimodal inventory pattern manually is a valuable exercise. Even a simple spreadsheet can reveal how much of your portfolio is overprotected or under-served.
But diagnosing it once isn’t enough—because the pattern will rebuild itself unless your system continuously adjusts to real demand.
That’s exactly what Intuiflow was designed to do. It connects your data into a flow-based planning model that surfaces these imbalances automatically and corrects them every day.
By recalculating buffer levels and updating priorities based on actual consumption—not static forecasts—Intuiflow prevents the two peaks from reforming. Planners see the problem clearly, and the system itself begins to stabilize it.
For most teams, the first time they log in and see their true inventory distribution is an eye-opener. The second “aha” comes a few weeks later, when that curve begins to flatten—not because of a one-time adjustment, but because the model has learned to keep flow balanced by design.
If you’d like to see what that looks like in your own data, request an Intuiflow demo. You’ll see your bimodal pattern clearly—and more importantly, how to prevent it from returning.
Your Inventory Problem Isn’t Size—It’s Shape
Most supply chains don’t have a single inventory problem; they have two, happening simultaneously—too much of the wrong and too little of the right.
Once that imbalance becomes visible, the path forward is clear: rebalance the flow, not just the numbers.
The paradox of being overstocked and stocked-out at once won’t disappear through harder work or more accurate forecasts. It disappears when planning systems are built to adapt as conditions change.
That’s what flow-based planning—and Intuiflow—make possible.
The logic recalculates priorities daily, positions inventory where it actually protects throughput, and exposes imbalances before they turn into crises. With that structure, planners move from firefighting to managing by exception—and supply chains finally stop oscillating between shortage and surplus.
Book a demo of Intuiflow to visualize your true inventory distribution, identify where flow breaks down, and discover how dynamic buffers can restore balance between shortages and surpluses.
