You’ll sometimes hear inventory referred to as “crystallized capacity,” the idea being that when you have limited capacity, building inventory is a solution that helps you meet customer demand. The typical example is a seasonal business, like a manufacturer of skiing equipment. 

So you want to grow your business, but you aren’t sure you can because of cash flow constraints. This problem plagues many companies, so you aren’t alone. This is an issue that US manufacturing as a whole needs to solve to maintain competitiveness.