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Cost benefit analysis for active interventions in supply chains is rarely comprehensive.
Many of the improvement projects undertaken in supply chains are evaluated by the management in terms of their cost versus the envisaged benefits, even when the consumer benefits are pretty obvious and evident. I have noticed that in most cases, the calculation revolves around the recorded costs only, making it quite incomprehensive.
The right way to analyse costs is using the principles of marginal costing. For example, when inventory freshness improves, the cost of obsolescence would go down. Is this cost differential considered as a benefit? Similarly, opportunity cost of lost sales is generally missed out in the calculations, which is often the biggest cost component and has the potential to tilt the decision in favour of the intervention.
Benefits associated with the twin consumer benefits of availability and freshness must be considered properly before taking the final decision.