Vendor-Managed Inventory (VMI) is an approach to inventory and order fulfillment whereby the ________ , not the customer, is responsible for managing and replenishing ________ . This appears at first sight to counter the principle of pull scheduling, because the preceding process (the manufacturer) is deciding how many and when to send to the next process (the retailer). In practice, the basis on which decisions will be made is agreed with the retailer beforehand, and is based on the retailer’s sales information. Under ________ , the supplier assumes responsibility for monitoring sales and inventory, and uses this information to trigger replenishment orders. In effect, suppliers take over the task of stock ________ .