Inventory management in LLD - Cheat Sheet & Quick Revision

Recall & Review

beginner

What is the primary goal of an inventory management system?

To track and control stock levels, orders, sales, and deliveries efficiently to avoid overstocking or stockouts.

beginner

Explain the concept of 'reorder point' in inventory management.

The reorder point is the stock level at which a new order should be placed to replenish inventory before it runs out.

intermediate

What is the difference between 'push' and 'pull' inventory systems?

Push systems forecast demand and push stock to stores, while pull systems order stock based on actual demand.

intermediate

Why is scalability important in inventory management system design?

Because inventory data and transactions grow with business size, the system must handle increasing load without slowing down or failing.

intermediate

Name two common data structures used to efficiently track inventory items and their quantities.

Hash maps (dictionaries) for quick lookup by item ID and queues or logs for tracking order history.

What does 'stockout' mean in inventory management?

A Running out of stock for an item

B Having too much stock

C Ordering new stock

D Tracking sales data

Stockout means the inventory for an item is zero or insufficient to meet demand.

Which component is essential for real-time inventory updates?

A Event-driven architecture

B Batch processing system

C Manual stock counting

D Static database

Event-driven architecture allows immediate updates when inventory changes occur.

What is a common way to prevent race conditions in inventory updates?

A Ignoring concurrent requests

B Increasing inventory manually

C Deleting old data

D Using locks or transactions

Locks or transactions ensure only one update happens at a time to keep data consistent.

Which metric helps decide when to reorder stock?

A Customer rating

B Sales price

C Reorder point

D Delivery time

Reorder point is the inventory level triggering a new order.

In a distributed inventory system, what helps keep data consistent across locations?

A Manual synchronization

B Eventual consistency

C Ignoring updates

D Random data refresh

Eventual consistency ensures all locations will have the same data after some time.

Describe the key components and flow of a scalable inventory management system.

Think about how stock is added, sold, and replenished.

Explain how to handle concurrent updates to inventory to avoid errors.

Consider what happens if two sales happen at the same time.