SCM Focus describes how many vendors have hijaked the terms inventory management and multi echelon when they lack this functionality. Transcipt Inventory optimization and multi echelon planning are very specific supply chain technologies that in our opinion, are the most important ways to improve supply planning. However, these terms have been heavily hijacked by many software vendors that do not actually have this functionality. Unfortunately, the operations research definition of inventory optimization has been very much watered down by companies that only have inventory management software to offer. They have re-branded inventory management as inventory optimization. We once read a white paper by a major supply chain vendor that declared that their software dealt with "multi-echelon" supply chains. This statement was highly misleading, as the vendor's software in question had no multi-echelon capability.