Decoupling Inventory

A type of inventory which serves as a buffer between interdependent operations.

Let’s say you and your roomie are both washing dishes. I would rinse and soap them. They would wash off the soap and rank them. If everytime I finished soaping a dish, I had to stand there and wait for my roomie to finish racking to grab mine, there would be waste.

And the chances that me and my roomie are super in-sync and have no waste is pretty rare. So instead, I’m going to lay my soapy dishes in one of the clean sinks. He will grab from there when he’s done with some.

That sink of soapy dishes is a decoupling inventory. It allows me to work at my own pace, and him to work at his own pace, without having to wait on each other.