Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Inventory
Inventory
Items
Overview
Distribution
Job Title*
Ownership
The Job Title [list@YourCompany.com?Subject=757682667.doc] is responsible for ensuring
that this document is necessary and that it reflects actual practice.
What Is an Item?
An item is a part or service you:
• Purchase
• Sell
• Plan
• Manufacture
• Stock
• Distribute
• Prototype
Items can also be containers for items as well as components you build into other items.
Defining Items
Define only the information you need to maintain the item. You cannot define an item at the
organization level. Oracle Inventory automatically switches to the Master Item window when
you define a new item.
Item Master
Always define items in the master organization. When you define an item, Oracle
automatically changes your current organization to the master organization. You may enable
your new items in as many child organizations as needed.
Item Attributes
Item attributes are the collection of information about an item.
Item Status
You can use statuses to provide default values for certain item attributes to control the
functionality of an item. The Item Status attribute has a defined set of yes or no values for the
status attributes. You apply the values to the status attributes when you choose an item status
code when you define an item. For example, in the beginning of a product development cycle
you set the Item Status attribute to Prototype with all of the status attributes defaulted to yes
except for Customer Orders Enabled. When the item is ready, you change the Item Status
attribute to Active to enable all item functions.
You can assign one or more pending statuses for an item, to be implemented on future dates.
These statuses become effective on their assigned effective dates. You can view the status
history of an item if needed.
Item Templates
Oracle Inventory has several predefined templates that you can use to define and update items
or you can create your own templates.
If you regularly define many items that share the same values for a number of attributes, you
may want to define item templates. You can only use copy once when you define an item. You
can predefine templates with relatively few attributes enabled because you can apply more than
one template to define one item.
Attributes in Templates
You can enable attributes and assign them values in each template that you create. When you
apply a template to an item, Oracle Inventory updates only the attributes that are enabled for
the template. The order in which templates are applied is extremely important.
Further Item Templates Help
For more information about item templates see Item Templates, Oracle Inventory User’s
Guide.
Instructor Note
The instructor might mention the predefined templates that Inventory provides:
ATO Model
ATO Item
Finished Good
Kit
PTO Model
Phantom Item
Planning Item
Purchased
Reference Item
Subassembly
Master-Level Control
An attribute you maintain at the master level has identical values across all organizations that
use the item.
Organization-Level Control
An attribute you maintain at the organization level may have different values for each
organization that uses it.
Attribute Control
Some attributes can be maintained at only the master level or the organizational Level. Units of
measure are controlled at the master level. If you are using multiple organizations, then you
should maintain min-max planning at the organization level.
Technical Note
Master-Level Control
For example, suppose you want to ensure that items defined in two organizations are
transactable at the same time in both organizations. If you make the item not transactable in
one organization, you want the same item to become not transactable in the other organization.
Organization-Level Control
Revision Control
A revision is a particular version of an item, bill of material, or routing. Use the revision
control to track item quantities by item revision and specify a revision for each material
transaction.
Enable revision control for items you must track version changes or changes that are
significant enough to track but do not affect the function and feature of the item.
You cannot change the revision control item attribute when an item has quantity on hand. If
revision control is controlled at the Master Item level, the check for on-hand quantity is against
the sum of on-hand quantity in all child organizations. If revision control is controlled at the
organizational level, the check for on-hand quantity is against the sum of on-hand quantity in
that organization.
Use letters, numbers, and characters such as A, A1, 2B, and so on to define revision numbers.
Letters are always in upper case and numbers may include decimals. To ensure revisions sort
properly, decimals should always be followed by a number. Revisions are sorted according to
ASCII rules, therefore each revision must be greater than the previous revision. For example,
you cannot use revision 10 after revision 9 because, according to ASCII sorting, 10 precedes 9.
Item Relationships
You can define relationships between items. This allows you to search for items through these
relationships. Except in Oracle Purchasing, these relationships are for inquiry and reporting
purposes only. For example, you can create an item relationship for substitute items or items
for which you can up-sell.
Refer to Guided Demonstration – Establishing Item Relationships [LAB40A2Y]
Item Catalogs
To define your catalog, you set up as many distinct item catalog groups as you need to partition
your Item Master. Each group has unique characteristics (called a descriptive element) that
completely describe items belonging to the group. When you assign an item to an item catalog
group, you define values for the descriptive elements that apply to your item. For example, an
item catalog group called mug could have a descriptive element called material. Possible
values for material might be glass or ceramic.
Descriptive Elements
You can define any number of descriptive elements for an item catalog group. You can also
describe whether the descriptive element is required at item definition, and whether the
descriptive element value is included by default in the item catalog description. Descriptive
element values can be concatenated and used to create an item's description. You turn this
feature off or on for each descriptive element in a catalog group. Turn Description Default on
for any element you want included in a concatenated description. You create a concatenated
description when assign an item to an item catalog group.
Refer to Guided Demonstration – Setting up Catalog Groups [LAB409EY]
Implementation Considerations
You should set all costing attributes at the organizational level because costing is most
commonly done at organizational level. WIP requires costing at org level to set up WIP
accounting classes. Costing of individual items is specific to individual organizations because
of location and other considerations.
Costing Method
Costing method is chosen and set at the inventory organization level. Within a set of books, an
enterprise can have multiple cost methods specified at each organization level. For example, a
company may have one average cost org and one standard cost org. Available costing methods
are as follows:
• Standard
• Weighted
• Average
• FIFO
• LIFO