Unit of Measure

The Sterling Warehouse Management System tracks inventory at the UOM level. A UOM translates to the type of packaging of an SKU.

An SKU has its own basic UOM called as Inventory UOM in the Sterling Warehouse Management System. For example, the basic UOM for a shoe is EACH. Similarly that of metal sheets is a ROLL, a metal block is in cubic metres, milk in ounces or gallons or liters dependent on the region in the world. These UOMs are unique at a SKU level and define the lowest such measure that an item has. The folowing figure depicts UOM for various items.

Figure 1. Unit Of Measure (UOM)

Let us expand this concept a further. If you have an item, say milk, then a carton is either a half-gallon or a gallon or 2 gallons. Each of these is sold in supermarkets as individual measures. The Sterling Warehouse Management System supports this by having multiple Inventory UOMs for a single item. Another well-known example is a battery pack, sold as 4-pack, 6-pack, 12-pack. Needless to say, the beverage industry has made a 6-pack and a case (12-pack) very popular.

From the above discussion, it is apparent that each item has its own unique Inventory UOM, as well as, additional Inventory UOMs. The following figure depicts UOM for a 6-Pack and 16-Pack batteries.

Figure 2. 6 Pack and 16 Pack Batteries

Now let us consider inventory being received, procured and ordered. Typically, inventory is also received in multiples of inventory UOMs, for example, case of 4-pack batteries or a pallet of milk cartons. These measures further define alternative methods of addressing an Inventory UOM. They have a direct relationship to the inventory UOM. In the Sterling Warehouse Management System, these UOMs are called as alternate UOMs. Alternate UOMs are case pack of 20 6-pack batteries, half-pallet of 1 gallon cartons of milk, pallet of air-conditioners. The following figure depicts case pack UOM.

Figure 3. Case Pack

The Sterling Warehouse Management System therefore allows you to transact (receive, purchase, sell, move) inventory at UOM levels that are appropriate for the transaction, further removing the constraint of the way the inventory is stored.

The advantages of tracking inventory and alternate UOMs in inventory are:

Ideally, in applications that cannot track multiple Inventory UOMs for the same item, a unique SKU is defined for each UOM. If you define separate SKU for each inventory UOM, warehouse would lose visibility for the product. Hence, tracking inventory with the same SKU and different inventory UOM provide correct visibility to the inventory on WMS and it represents the physical inventory.
Ability to place and source orders at a higher UOM level and have the WMS translate those quantities to appropriate lower Inventory UOMs.