Traditional inventory management techniques break down in cases where a manufacturer maintains inventory to supply future maintenance of their in-service equipment.
As demand for goods approaches zero, liquidation of inventory is indicated in most revenue management models.
[1] Zero inventory to service products in the field, however, fails the organization in other business areas.
Possible costs to manufacture replacement inventory and the harder-to-calculate costs of customer confidence erosion can be greater over time than the immediate financial concerns that are remedied by liquidating inventory entirely by scrapping or discarding it as waste.
[3] An organization that uses the PIM model mitigates the immediate pinch point caused by inventory reduction by retaining as-needed mutual access to inventory through the marketplace for an indeterminate time rather than losing access immediately and irrevocably through scrapping or discarding the inventory as waste.