The term stock applies to your raw materials, part-finished work (WIP) and finished products. There is a distinction between the description of your stock, part code, name, etc, and actual examples of it. The former is referred to as your Materials Catalogue, and the latter as your Inventory.

Your inventory is modelled as it is now and also how it will be at any time in the future. It can do this because it knows when your purchase order deliveries are expected and when your sales orders are due for dispatch. This means your inventory of any particular material cannot be described by a single quantity. The following table describes the types of quantity you will see concerning your inventory.

Quantity Type Name

Meaning

In-stock

This is the physical stock on the shelf now that is available for use. If you do a stock take, this is what you should find. It excludes failed, expired, scrapped and dead stock (see below for the meaning of these terms).

Planned

This is stock that is expected to be made or bought in the future. There will be a pair of associated dates; one will define when the order is planned to be raised and the other will define when the stock is planned to arrive. The planned quantities and dates are calculated by the SMART scheduler.

On-order

This is stock that has been ordered, but has not arrived yet. This means a purchase order or a works order has been raised and approved, but not yet completed.

In goods-in

This is stock that has arrived from a supplier, but has not yet been booked-in. The stock is not usable until it has been inspected and booked-in as good stock.

Works demand

This is stock that is allocated to works orders, or sub-contract purchase orders that have not yet started. It is the ‘kit’ that will be issued to the works orders, or sub-contract purchase orders.

In-works

This is stock that has been issued to works orders that have started but not yet completed. If you did a stock check on the shop-floor you may or may not find this, depending on how far the works orders have progressed.

At sub-con

This is stock that has been issued, as kit, to sub-contract purchase orders that have been approved, but not yet completed.

Expected returns

This is stock that is expected to be returned from works orders that have started but not yet completed. This represents off-cuts and bar-ends left over when ‘dimensioned’ stock is issued as kit to works orders.

Sales demand

This is stock that is allocated for dispatch against sales orders for dispatches that have not yet been raised.

Un-allocated

This is stock that is not allocated to anything. In a sense, it's stock you shouldn’t have! This includes on-order and planned stock, so it may not physically be there yet.

Free stock on-shelf

This is physical stock that is not allocated to anything. This differs from un-allocated in that it actually exists, so it doesn’t include on-order and planned stock.

Failed

This is physical stock that is not usable because it has failed an inspection.

Expired

This is physical stock that is not usable because it has become too old. It has passed its expiry date.

Scrapped

This is physical stock that you have thrown away.

Dead

This is physical stock that you, or the scheduler, have marked as not usable. The scheduler will mark empty or very nearly empty stock batches as dead to remove them from further consideration.

These quantities can be shown to you for all batches of a particular material or for a specific batch. The meaning of the term batch is given below.

Your inventory is organised on four levels. At the top is the material code or part code. Next are batches. These have a unique number and are composed of material items with the same code that have a common history. Then there are instances. These are part batches that have common dimensions (length, width and height). The instance is the level that is used for scheduling and also for providing all your batch traceability. And, finally, there are movements. A movement is inventory being taken out of stock or put into stock. They relate to instances. There is a date associated with each movement. These movements and dates are scanned when calculating your future stock position.