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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Small and medium business | Business Central, N... / Item Use - Variants, U...
Small and medium business | Business Central, N...
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Item Use - Variants, Units of Measure and Weight Calculations

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Posted on by RobinsonsScotland 50

Hello,

I am in the process of planning our migration to Business Central. I am currently looking at how best to implement Sales Order and Inventory management within our cement products division. We sell a lot of concrete panels. They come in standard heights (500mm, 600mm, 1,000mm, etc.) and standard thickness (90 mm and 140mm). However, we can make panels of any length (500mm to 10,000m). Weight is a significant consideration when planning the delivery of panels; we have weight charts for all combinations of heights and thickness for 1m lengths used to calculate the weight of items ordered.

Customers tend to order several panels of a certain length/height and thickness, i.e. "I want 10 5m long panels of a thickness of 140mm and a height of 1,000mm."

My initial thought was to create items based on height and thickness combinations, i.e. 500mm x 140mm and use variants for the custom lengths. The unit of measurement would be PCS. However, calculating the weight becomes difficult as the item card has gross and net weight, but the quantity is the number of panels, not the length.

I also considered not using variants and changing the unit of measurement to meters. The salesperson would enter the total meters of a required height and thickness, i.e. 50m of 140mm thick and 1,000mm high panels. Calculating the weight would be a simple calculation, but we have no way of recording the length of each panel.

I am unsure how to proceed; am I missing an obvious solution?

I appreciate any guidance you can provide.

Michael

  • Suggested answer
    MahGah Profile Picture
    MahGah 15,428 on at
    RE: Item Use - Variants, Units of Measure and Weight Calculations

    Just as a side note. I saw this article that has a cool idea. You may can modify it to make item creation easier.

    joshanglesea.wordpress.com/.../

  • Suggested answer
    RobinsonsScotland Profile Picture
    RobinsonsScotland 50 on at
    RE: Item Use - Variants, Units of Measure and Weight Calculations

    Hi Guy,

    Thank you for the clarification.

    I will be implementing your solution; initially, creating new items manually.

    I appreciate your time and effort in replying to my request for help.

    Michael

  • Guy McKenzie Profile Picture
    Guy McKenzie 1,330 on at
    RE: Item Use - Variants, Units of Measure and Weight Calculations

    Hi Michael,

    You have correctly understood me regarding creating items.

    Essentially each length benefits from having a unique item with the correct details I.e. the 5m panel is a unique item.

    If your volume of orders is low and users are skilled, doing this manually isn’t prohibitive (Copy item and BOM and change a couple of details).

    However, a configurator does this task far more efficiently as soon as you need to create parts with any degree of regularity.

    Good luck with getting it sorted.

  • Suggested answer
    MahGah Profile Picture
    MahGah 15,428 on at
    RE: Item Use - Variants, Units of Measure and Weight Calculations

    You are welcome Michael

    I know what you mean. We selected CPQ path because of exact reason. 99% of our products are custom made for customer (make to order) and has lots of configuration. Hence, we decided to use CPQ.  

  • RobinsonsScotland Profile Picture
    RobinsonsScotland 50 on at
    RE: Item Use - Variants, Units of Measure and Weight Calculations

    Good afternoon Guy,

    Thank you for taking the time to reply to my request for advice and guidance.

    Your advice on variants fits my initial impression of them; I will avoid them.

    Would you please expand on what you mean by "manually creating bespoke lengths on the fly" - do you mean creating new items?

    The issue faced when creating a sales order line is with a UOM of metres is I would use the Quantity field to record the total length of the panels required. I have no field to record the length of each panel.

    For example, a customer wants 10 x 5m panels with a width of 140mm and a height of 1m. The salesperson would select the item for 140mm x 1m panel and enter a quantity of 50m, but there is no way of recording that ten panels are required - Am I missing something?

    Again, thank you for your help.

  • RobinsonsScotland Profile Picture
    RobinsonsScotland 50 on at
    RE: Item Use - Variants, Units of Measure and Weight Calculations

    Good afternoon MahGah,

    Thank you for taking the time to reply to my request for guidance.

    Unfortunately, the alternative UOM is a non-starter as there is no method for converting between metres and the number of panels.

    The use of the CPQ software is an exciting option, which I will follow up on.

    It looks like I will have to set up a lot of different items.

    Regards,

    Michael

  • Guy McKenzie Profile Picture
    Guy McKenzie 1,330 on at
    RE: Item Use - Variants, Units of Measure and Weight Calculations

    Firstly, I would not use variants. Variants are a useful concept but there are just too many limitations in functionality around manufacturing (and other areas). These are seemingly getting closed gradually but I'd be wary.

    I would create unique items for each height and width combination for a one metre length and simply make my base UOM either metres or 1,000 mm. I would then sell by length.

    For each unique item, you can record the appropriate weight per metre (base uom) on the item card.

    In order to manage selling and manufacturing a specific length and quantity of panel/s within your broad length range, you have a choice between pre-configuring lengths, manually creating bespoke lengths on the fly or using a product configurator to allow a unique length to be created each time it is needed.

    For me, the best approach it would depend how many unique lengths we need to create and how frequently. i.e. if I needed to create multiple bespoke lengths daily, a product configurator is going to pay for itself in no time, whereas, if most of what I sell is common lengths, I'd pre-configure the data and simply create unique lengths manually as and when required.

    If you are a small team of skilled users, manual item creation will not be prohibitive. However, a product configurator empowers a non-skilled sales user to seamlessly create the correct item data for inventory and manufacturing management.

  • Suggested answer
    MahGah Profile Picture
    MahGah 15,428 on at
    RE: Item Use - Variants, Units of Measure and Weight Calculations

    Hi

    I tried to summarize what I understood here and then see if we can find a solution together but I could misunderstood you all together. 

    You basically need to deal with 3 challenges:

    1) UOM (unit of measure) for PO. This is UOM that you purchase the item.

    2) Inventory UOM (Base UOM). The method that you keep the item in inventory.

    3) SO UOM. This is related to your question. 

    4) How to setup and enter the parts for SO. 

    Do you have any UOM that you can define a table and convert it to other UOM? This can be your Inventory UOM. Then using following method you can have SO UOM and PO UOM

    https://usedynamics.com/business-central/product-dev/alternative-unit/

    Back to how to setup the item: 

    The most accurate method is to setup one item for each size and weight but that would be lots of item. This way you have all the info in each item card but you have many items to manage. I have seen some companies use this method because they want to pay different commission, or report exact sales for each item size, or different price and discount for each size. 

    The most efficient way is to use CPQ such as https://www.dmsiworks.com/products/configurator/  this way you can customize item based on order with one time setup. 

    The other way is to determine which measurement has no impact on inventory and only required for SO. Then add a custom field in SO for that measure in SO, Pick instruction, etc. This way you can record it and use it without creating too many items. 

    I wait for your feedback. 

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