Five units miscounted. Two hundred units overbought Five units. That's the gap between what was physically on the shelf and what the system said was there. Not 500. Not a whole pallet gone sideways. Five. And somehow that five-unit discrepancy triggered a purchase order for 200 more. Here's how it usually goes. Somebody counts a fast-moving SKU — batteries, say, or a generic poly bag that goes on every kit — and they're off by five. Could be a double-scan, could be a box tuck

Everyone has the evidence. Nobody has the same answer Ask the warehouse team how many units of SKU 4471 are on hand and they'll tell you 144. Ask the replenishment planner and she'll say 112. Pull the ERP and it shows 158. Nobody is lying. Nobody keyed anything in wrong on purpose. They're just working from counts that happened at different times, in different ways, with different people running the scan guns. And now three groups are making real decisions off three different