Most fulfillment teams that are missing delivery windows are not losing time at the dock or in transit. They're losing it earlier, quietly, in the gap between what the system says is on the shelf and what's actually there. A picker goes to a slot for a unit that doesn't exist. Someone has to go find it, or sub it, or cancel the line. That's the delay. And it already happened before the order even started moving. Inventory accuracy is the unglamorous thing nobody wants to talk

Manual spreadsheets can't prevent inventory mistakes Most of the inventory problems I've seen didn't start with a bad process. They started with a spreadsheet that was 95% fine. That 5% is where the pain lives. Here's a scenario I've watched play out more than once. A team finishes a cycle count, someone keys the numbers in, and one row gets pasted over another. Nobody catches it because the sheet still balances — technically. Two weeks later, a 3PL client is short 200 units