Did you catch that weight?
How much is your inventory worth? Is it appreciating or depreciating? When do you have to sell it to achieve the best possible return? How should you finance it?
These are important questions for any manufacturer but they're especially complicated for the food industry. The value of an inventory depends on the number of units in inventory. That sounds simple enough but what if you have more than one unit of measure? For instance, you may sell chicken by the pound, by the piece ("I'll have a wing and a drumstick"). For a system to calculate your inventory value, it has to understand the relationship between units and weights. When a unit comes into inventory, the system has to "catch the weight".
But wait, there's more. Foods in inventory can change. As cheese ages, for instance, it loses some of its water content and weighs less. The system may assume that you have less cheese and therefore that your inventory is less valuable. But cheeses often appreciate in value as they get older. You may have less cheese but more value. Most ERP systems get confused by this.
To handle these problems, an ERP system has to understand dual units of measure, commonly referred to as "catch weights." And most vendors will tell you that their systems can do exactly that. But there's a catch. Most systems calculate the value only after the product is shipped and an invoice is generated. In other words, most systems catch the weight as the item leaves inventory, not as it enters. That’s easy to do. It's also too late.
You need to know the value of your inventory when it is inventory – not after it's shipped. The Lawson M3 system does exactly that. In fact, M3 can calculate inventory value on a minute-by-minute basis. That's very useful to bakeries and dairies.
If you need to know what your inventory is worth in real-time, talk to us about M3. We can take a major weight off your mind – no matter how you measure it.
As its name implies, The Lawson Opinionizer offers opinions. We believe we've got our facts straight but we don't guarantee it. A new Opinionizer appears every Monday. If you have an opinion, send an e-mail to Opinionizer@lawson.com
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