Commitment not required for assemblies?

Our elegant visual manufacturing process is at odds with Netsuite's inventory allocation system. Here's our problem:
[LIST]
[*]"Widget x" is allocated to orders 1, 2 and 3 and backordered on orders 4, 5 and 6.
[*]Orders 1, 2, and 3 can not ship because they contain backordered "widget y".
[*]We always keep 3 of "widget x" on the shelf and won't build until there are less than 3 (visual/kanban card management).
[*]We can't fulfill any orders that will relieve the inventory on the shelf without manual order reallocation.
[/LIST]

Multiply this by 1000 and this is our situation. So manual reallocation is problematic.

Is there a way to "turn off" the requirement that inventory is allocated for a certain item or class of items? For example, it would be great if we could prevent us from fulfilling orders that were backordered on Inventory Items, while permitting backorders on Assembly Items.