If you’re like me, you’ve hit a wall when it comes to economic reports. I caught my fill at least a month ago and, ever since, I’ve avoided bad news like the plague — which is to say I’ve avoided all news. Each of us has a tipping point, after all, and beyond that it’s just noise. 

So it’s interesting to hear bad news spun in a positive light, which was the case in a Bloomberg article Tuesday. The thesis of Matthew Benjamin’s and Simon Kennedy’s article is similar to the one I floated last week: that the crumbling economy has pulled some manufacturers into the operational excellence fold through the side door.

The focus in this case is on inventories, which have shown a steady decline over the past few months (kind of like my good cheer). The industry seems to be coming around to the opinion that this is actually a good thing because stockpiles had grown way too big.

In the article, the authors paraphrase Elga Bartsch, chief European economist at Morgan Stanley in London, as saying: 

Now, just- in-time inventory management and closer interaction between firms at different stages of the supply chain mean companies’ stocks are in better synch with the economy, she says.

That, in turn, bodes well when the news finally turns and the economy picks up. And then we’ll see who has taken to heart the notion of continuous improvement and who was just shifting with the wind.

What does your inventory look like these days?