Sized Inventory items alternative?
My shop has an assortment of raw and finished fabrics that we'd like to keep track of. The finished fabrics are not a problem, however the on the side of the raw fabrics we're trying to figure out what would be the best practice. If anyone has any good ideas, I'm all ears! Here's the details:
Once our raw fabrics have been cut from full rolls, we are left with an assortment of raw-cut sizes that we want referenced in our Flex inventory. We would like to avoid making an individual "Model" with the sizing information included for every cut scrap.
One of my shop guys thought using the "Serialized Model" preset would work so that we could just create a number of serial units under one fabric model type that represent the sizes of raw cuts that exist, not causing the inventory tree to be cluttered with countless sizes. The downfall to this is that it is resulting in a Item Model that has 10-20 of serial units that 75% of which would be the same size, repeating on the list. Plus, if that fabric type/size were needed on an event/job, when finalizing a manifest one would need to select the serialized model used. Not exactly ideal.
Is there an alternative preset that could be used to catalog a number of similar items that do not have a serial number into one inventory model? I would like to organize the items in a way similar to how a serialized model does, except without being concerned with an actual S/N, but being able to group similarly sized items together instead of as individual items.
Thoughts anyone? Thanks in advance
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Hi Charlie,
This is a new challenge! I have a couple thoughts depending on how accurate you need to track things. My first thought is to do a Non-Serialized Model like "blue ~5x6' " for all the pieces of blue fabric that are roughly 5'x6'. If there's a more consistent measurement, like everything is always 48" wide, you could do a single item for all the blue 48" wide...
Second thought is more complicated, but offers greater accuracy in tracking. First, a new inventory group for sizes. Just sizes. So each unique size gets a Virtual Model (has no actual count). Then each color/type of fabric gets its own non-serialized model as well, but use the Non-Serialized Model w/Accessories option. Then, on the Contents tab of each fabric item, add a "size" model and adjust the quantity to your current inventory count for that fabric/size combination.For availability to work, you'd need to adjust the quantity of the parent Non-Serialized Model according to the total number of "virtual accessories" you've got.
Assuming these are use-and-done items, putting them on a job means manually reducing that "accessories" quantity, but using the appropriate Resource Type for the line item in your system should reduce the parent item's quantity for you. Similarly, when you cut another piece and have another 5x8 or whatever for a given fabric, you have to manually adjust the quantity again. But I think, given the unique nature of this problem, it might be the best (maybe the only way) for tracking with any accuracy.
Finally, I _think_ the Inventory Model Contents report should give a quick look at your on-hand for these items; filter to the parent inventory group of the fabric models. If not quite what you need, it would probably be relatively simple to modify that to your needs. Reach out to our support staff if you need assistance in that regard.
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