ABC analysis
Inventory categorization technique with three categories: "A items" with very tight control and accurate records, "B items" with less tightly controlled and good records, and "C items" with the simplest controls possible and minimal records.

In materials management, ABC analysis is an inventory categorisation technique which divides inventory into three categories: 'A' items, with very tight control and accurate records, 'B' items, less tightly controlled and with moderate records, and 'C' items, with the simplest controls possible and minimal records. An ABC analysis provides a mechanism for identifying items that will have a significant impact on overall inventory cost, while also providing a mechanism for identifying different categories of stock that will require different management and controls.
The ABC analysis suggests that inventories of an organization are not of equal value.
Thus, the inventory is grouped into three categories (A, B, and C) in order of their estimated importance. 'A' items are very important for an organization. Because of the high value of these items, frequent value analysis is required. In addition to that, an organization needs to choose an appropriate order pattern (e.g. "just-in-time") to avoid excess capacity. 'B' items are important, but less so than 'A' items, although more important than 'C' items. Therefore, 'B' items are intergroup items.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1166086. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “ABC analysis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.