Inventory Management for Retail

Chika

Hi All,

I'm handling a new project of a retail company.
This company sell flat glass.
When a purchaser buy a new flat glass, the measurement that is used is roll. This flat glass has 2 dimensions [width * length] and has unique serial number.
Let's say one roll has width = 152 cm and length = 3048 cm.

Everytime their customer order the flat glass, the warehouse officer will cut it, and then send the remaining back to the warehouse.

This is one of Scenario that might be happen:

Suppose a customer wants a flat glass that has width = 152 cm and length = 40 cm.
The warehouse officer will cut the flat glass and get 152 cm * 40 cm.
It means that system has to update detail of the flat glass [now it has width = 152 cm and length = 3008 cm].

My question is :

How to handle the inventory for this remain item? Should I insert new item
code for the remaining flat glass?
If I insert a new code for this remaining flat glass,
my database performance will be very slow[There will be so many rows just to handle one item].

Is there anyone of you that have ever faced a similiar case like this?
Any advice will be very helpful.

Thanks in advance

ara3n

I would keep inventory (UOM) as Area.

So you would have in inventory an area of 463296.

Area := 152 * 3048 = 463296


On Sales Line I would add two new field called. Lenght and Width.
OnValidate of the fields Caclulate Quantity = Area.

Make sure the warehouse guy will see the high and width on his screen and be able to fulfill the order.

The Inventory will be subtracted by 6080 Area (cm ^2).

gumboots

Chika wrote:

Hi All,

I'm handling a new project of a retail company.
This company sell flat glass.
When a purchaser buy a new flat glass, the measurement that is used is roll. This flat glass has 2 dimensions [width * length] and has unique serial number.
Let's say one roll has width = 152 cm and length = 3048 cm.

Hi,

Your business problem is similar to selling textile products (which come in rolls), metal rods or timbers by length. Most fabrics come in different standard widths (e.g., 24", 36", 44", 48", and so forth) and they are sold by meterage or length. The widths are more or less industry standard or in width pre-cut to the manufacturer's standard.

So you probably want to use Item Variant to represent the item:

Item No. := 'FAB1'
Variant Code := '24'|'36'|'44'|'48', etc.
Unit of Measure Code := 'M' or 'FT' (meter or feet)
Description := '24-INCH COTTON DAMASK'

Using area is probably not a good idea because Sales Unit of Measure is based on length.

Scott

ara3n

The problem with using variant is that you are purchasing by role. What variant will you add when you purchase the whole role?


And when you sell the variant, you will be going negative because there won't be variant in inventory. Remember qty application is done by variant.
The warehouse person has to do positive adjstment Variant, negative adjustment actual role.

What is wrong with Sales UOM being at length?
You can still enter length and width on order that info on sales order.
The customer doesn't care how you keep inventory.
He just wants the length and width in correct format.

gumboots

ara3n wrote:

The problem with using variant is that you are purchasing by role. What variant will you add when you purchase the whole role?

Did you mean role or roll? Fabrics almost always come in rolls and sold by meter (length). This is the industry practice. Even though fabrics are packaged in rolls, a company still buys and sells fabrics in meter. In fact, when fabric vendor delivers the goods, some rolls may be shorter or longer than one another but they always put a sticker on each roll to indicate the length.

Rigid objects like glass rods come in length and may be sold to customers in much shorter lengths at retail. Sales and purchase unit of measure code is the same---meter; the difference is in quantity. I guess a simple guideline you can use to determine what unit measure code or variant code to use is look at the same item before and after sale. If before sale it's 50 meter, after sale it becomes 45 meters, then the quantity sold is 5 meters. Remember the width would never change.

ara3n wrote:

And when you sell the variant, you will be going negative because there won't be variant in inventory. Remember qty application is done by variant.
The warehouse person has to do positive adjstment Variant, negative adjustment actual role.

I don't quite understand your quote. How is selling "variant" making me go negative and there won't be variant in inventory? Variant code can only be used with item. Item Ledger Entry keeps track of inventory for both items AND items with variant code. I am curious to see how you used variant in some your implementations. Can you provide a real example?

ara3n wrote:

What is wrong with Sales UOM being at length?
You can still enter length and width on order that info on sales order.
The customer doesn't care how you keep inventory.
He just wants the length and width in correct format.

What good does it do to create two custom fields, length and width, in the Sales Line? If the consumer is only concerned about seeing the correct description or format on the invoice, all you need to do is to enter this info in the description field. You could also one line of code to concatenate the Variant Code and Quantity fields and put it in the Quantity - OnValidate trigger so the description becomes "2 m x 5 m glass sheet" or whatever.

The original poster was asking the following questions:

How to handle the inventory for this remain item? Should I insert new item code for the remaining flat glass?

Inserting a new item code is unnecessary. Assume he is also using the Purchasing granule in NAV, the inventory would be added to Item Ledger Entry anyway when a purchase order or invoice is posted. NAV will still keep track of the inventory and there is no need for adjustment. You could be buying 2000 meters of fabric from a vendor and sell the fabric to 100 different customers in various lengths.

ara3n

As long as the width would never change, you using meter as UOM yes would be the right solution.


If you are cutting a specific size for glass, the remainder could be used as variant.
Salesperson could look at variants first and see if there is any onhand before selling/cutting a new piece.

Anyways I would need more info to say anything about this.

I try to stay away from implementing variants is because it just adds more headache for salespeople and warehouse.

I implemented variants at discount warehouse store, where variants determined the quality of the furniture and how bad it was damaged. Pricing was setup based on variants.

what would happen is the sales people would not scan the barcode (variant) and would select different variant to get lower price to sell the goods. I know this training issue but you would see unapplied inventory left and right.