Work in process
item still being made or completed as opposed to a finished or merely planned item
Work in process or work-in-process, WIP, work in progress, goods in process, or in-process inventory refers to a company's partially finished goods waiting for completion and eventual sale, or the value of these items. The term is used in supply chain management, and WIP is a key input for calculating inventory on a company's balance sheet. In lean thinking, inappropriate processing or excessive processing of goods or work in process, "doing more than is necessary", is seen as one of the seven wastes (Japanese term: muda) which do not add value to a product.
WIP inventory in supply chain management
WIP inventory calculations can help a company assess their supply chain health and guide in supply chain planning. In most cases, it is ideal to have low WIP inventory levels, and companies that manage their inventory level efficiently tend to have lower costs. Managing WIP inventory requires coordination between several functions within a company, as well as with suppliers and customers. Higher WIP inventory levels are advantageous in that they can support a surge in demand, as well as improve cycle time since there is more material in production. However, this can also increase storage costs and obsolescence risk, as well as lead to waste if demand is lower than expected. To mitigate these risks, companies are increasingly turning to demand forecasting software. These tools analyze historical data, market trends, and customer behavior to predict future demand with greater accuracy.
“Work in process” enters the record as item still being made or completed as opposed to a finished or merely planned item. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Work, process and item can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Work in process” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Work, process and item provides the most credible route into that argument.
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 Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q357662. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Work in process” 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.