This means 90 percent of true costs, such as technology, capital, inventory turnover and embedded waste, are barely touched.

In a manufacturing business, the pace of inventory turnover is regarded as an important measure of management efficiency.

And these departments did generate traffic, helping to increase Costco's inventory turnover.

To calculate inventory turnover, add together a company's inventory position at the start and end of a period and divide it in half.

Perhaps the most dramatic result, and by far the biggest saving, came in inventory turnovers.

Providing additional ratios, e.g. inventory turnover, may help to define the right value for each figure.

Another important indicator is inventory turnover, which shows how frequently the overall stock of goods moves from warehouse to customer.

One measure of Apple's new discipline is that the company increased inventory turnovers from 13 to 22 in the quarter, which helped drive down costs.

The equation for inventory turnover equals the Cost of goods sold divided by the average inventory.

The company's operating expenses declined during the third quarter, but inventory turnover slowed slightly.