"Would the ultimate objective be to minimise inventory held as...

"Would the ultimate objective be to minimise inventory held as much as possible?"


In retail its fundamental. (provided your shelves are not empty ... its an optimisation problem).

If you sell 12 TV sets in a year, it is clearly better to hold 6 in stock and replace a set as soon as you sell one, rather than buy all 12 at the start of the year.
You make the same profit in each case, but in the former case you tie up half the amount of capital.