Inventory management is one of the key concepts for manufacturing enterprises in order to be successful. In some certain circumstances, many manufacturers suffer from inefficient inventory management because of their business environments. Many operational and structural conditions cause inappropriate inventory management and inventory related problems appear eventually. On the other hand, some abilities and technological opportunities of manufacturing enterprises drive their inventory management more efficiently. The aim of this article is to find out how these operational and structural conditions affect inventory management. Survey data was collected from 305 large manufacturing enterprises (LMEs) located in Turkey. It has been found that demand and capacity related issues are among the most significant for inventory management. It has also been found that some internal conditions such as ‘work flow breaks’ and ‘uncertainties in daily material usage’ are among the least significant for better inventory management.