Line hits

Line hits are a means of measuring the volume of sales for a specific product. Not to be confused with order quantity, it is the number of times a product appears on a sales order. If you have three lines on an order, and the same product appears on each line, that product experiences three sales line hits. Line hits may also be called issues, frequency, or velocity. It measures how often that product is ordered or transferred to another warehouse. Transactions that are sent to lost business, and that update usage, are also tracked as hits.

Line hits are updated by the Product Administration Month End Processing Report, when Yes is selected for the Merge option. When products are merged, internal inventory transaction (ICET) records are created for invoiced orders. Based on these ICET records, totals for sales hits, transfer hits, and lost business hits are updated in each Product Warehouse Product Setup-Usage record. Up to 25 months of sales hits are tracked, which is 2 years plus the current month.

Warehouse transfer line hits are updated only when the warehouse ARP is followed. Line hits are not updated for back-ordered items, and Value Add transfers or lost business transactions. Returns do not decrease line hits.

Ranking

Line hits are used for several purposes. One of the most important uses is in ranking products. Not to be confused with the product classification function, product ranking assigns a letter rank to products based on their number or percentage of hits within a specified time frame. After a product is ranked, you can assign specific parameters for measuring usage and setting safety allowance.

Ranking is activated for each company. Select the Perform Detail Ranking Functionality option in Product Replenishment Setup-Ranking, and then define the parameters for each rank level in the Detail Ranks Record window. After you set these parameters, you select the appropriate ranking options when you can run Product Administration Inventory Classification Report.

Slow moving or frozen products

Line hits are also used to analyze low usage or frozen products. Based on parameters in Product Replenishment Setup-Exceptions, you can identify products whose sales activity fall below a preset threshold. Additionally, you can track frozen products that experience a specific number of hits over a period of time.

A minimum number of hits can be defined so that when a product’s volume falls below that threshold for the designated period of months, an exception is created by the Product Administration Month End Processing Report. The exception can be viewed in the Product Exception Center Administration. The minimum threshold and period are set up in Product Replenishment Setup-Exceptions. These low activity exceptions help you identify your slower moving products.

Another exception that is based on hits activity is the Frozen Product With Hits. If a product is frozen permanently, or has a status of Do Not Reorder or Order As Needed, and it experiences line hits over a specified number of months, an exception is created during Product Administration Month End Processing Report. Parameters for setting these exceptions are also selected in Product Replenishment Setup-Exceptions.

Click the Usage button in these functions to view a product’s line hits:

  • Product Inquiry-Replenishment
  • Product Warehouse Product Setup-Frozen
  • Product Exception Center Administration

Order point adjusters

Line hits can be used to adjust the order point on products that experience exceptional usage. Line hits are used when adjusting order point based on Average Sales Quantity (ASQ), or Five-high. If a minimum number of line hits are met, based on settings in Product Replenishment Setup-Adjusters and Product Warehouse Product Setup-Ordering, the ASQ calculation is performed by the Product Administration Month End Processing Report. If the ASQ value is higher than the standard order point and other adjusted values, the ASQ value replaces the raw order point. The Five-high adjuster parameters can also be set up with a minimum number of hits. Its value is used for the order point if it is the highest adjusted value.