appropriate menu

Commands are distributed across the Views, References, and Actions menus, or displayed as buttons. In previous LN and Web UI releases, these commands are located in the Specific menu.

buyer

The employee of your company who is the contact to the concerned buy-from business partner. The buyer is also known as the purchasing agent.

default supply source

The source that supplies an item by default. You can use purchase orders or schedules, production orders or schedules, assembly orders, or warehousing orders to supply an item.

The default supply source determines what type of order is used to supply the item, but in general, you can override the default and specify an alternate source.

department

A company's organizational unit that carries out a specific set of tasks, for example, a sales office or a purchase office. Departments are assigned number groups for the orders they issue. The department's enterprise unit determines the financial company to which the financial transactions that the department generates are posted.

enterprise unit

A financially independent part of your organization that includes entities such as departments, work centers, warehouses, and projects. The enterprise unit's entities must all belong to the same logistic company, but a logistic company can contain multiple enterprise units. An enterprise unit is linked to a single financial company.

When you carry out logistic transactions between enterprise units, the resulting financial transactions are posted to the financial companies to which each enterprise unit is linked.

equipment item

Reusable items used to produce or to ship goods for a project. Equipment is not consumed while the project is carried out. Equipment can be internally owned or externally rented. Equipment items can range from tools such as electric drills and wheelbarrows, to machines, large cranes, trucks, tug boats, and so on.

item

The raw materials, subassemblies, finished products, and tools that can be purchased, stored, manufactured, and sold.

An item can also represent a set of items handled as one kit, or which exist in multiple product variants.

You can also define nonphysical items, which are not retained in inventory but can be used to post costs or to invoice services to customers. The examples of nonphysical items:

  • Cost items (for example, electricity)
  • Service items
  • Subcontracting services
  • List items (menus/options)

item group

A group of items with similar characteristics. Each item belongs to a particular item group. The item group is used in combination with the item type to set up item defaults.

item type

A classification of items used to identify if the item is, for example, a generic item, a service item, or an equipment item. Depending on the item's type, certain functions will only apply to that item.

list item

A type of item that consists of multiple components. The components can also be managed and ordered separately. The type of list item (kit, menu, options, or accessories) indicates how the components are related.

List items are used to speed up the order-entry process. The order lines for a list item can contain main items or components.

mask

A template that specifies the structure of an identification code. A mask is used to generate the identifiers for objects such as serial numbers, handling units, or shifts.

multisite

Refers to the management of multiple sites within a single (logistic) company.

In a multicompany structure, which includes several companies, multisite applies to each of the logistic companies.

planner

The employee or department responsible for planning the production, purchase and distribution of items. The planner takes into account the inventory levels, availability of materials, and capacities of resources, and reacts on signals such as rescheduling messages that LN generates.

planning cluster

An object used to group warehouses for which the inbound and outbound flow of goods and materials is planned collectively. For this purpose, the demand and supply of the warehouses of the planning cluster is aggregated. Within a planning cluster one supply source is used, such as production, purchasing or distribution.

If multisite is implemented, a planning cluster must include one or more sites. The site or sites include the warehouses for which the planning processes are performed. A site is linked to one planning cluster.

purchase office

A department in your organization that is responsible for buying the materials and services required by your organization. You assign number groups to the purchase office.

routing group

A group of items with similar routing attributes, for example, the same work center, routing operation, BOM, and so on. A routing group is defined by the user as a selection criterion for production orders.

sales office

A department that is identified in the company business model to manage the business partner's sales relations. The sales office is used to identify the locations that are responsible for the organization's sales activities.

seasonal pattern

Seasonal patterns define the fluctuation of certain values, such as the expected usage or demand of an item in the course of a year. These values serve as parameters in forecast and advice.

segmentation

A subdivision of the item code in different logical parts, called segments.

These segments are visible in the sessions as separate fields. Examples of segments are:

  • Project segment
  • Cluster segment
  • Item identification

serialized item

A physical occurrence of a standard item that is given a unique lifetime serial number. This enables tracking of the individual item throughout its lifetime, for example, through the design, production, testing, installation, and maintenance phases. A serialized item can consist of other serialized components.

Examples of serialized items are cars (Vehicle Identification Number), airplanes (tail numbers), PCs, and other electronic equipment (serial numbers).

service office

A department clearly identified within the company business model to manage the services provided to a customer. The service office is used to identify the locations that are responsible for the service activities within the organization.

shop floor planner

The person responsible for printing, (re)scheduling and releasing production orders and managing workloads.

signal

A warning message displayed if you enter or select an item to which a signal is linked. Item signals can also be used to block the issue and/or requisition of items.

Business-partner signal

A warning message displayed if you select a business partner to whom a signal is linked.

site

A business location of an enterprise that can maintain its own logistical data. It includes a collection of warehouses, departments and assembly lines at the same location. Sites are used to model the supply chain in a multisite environment.

These restrictions apply to sites:

  • A site cannot cross countries. The warehouses and departments of the site must be in the same country as the site.
  • A site is linked to one planning cluster. Consequently, all warehouses and work centers of a site must belong to the same planning cluster.
  • A site is linked to one logistic company.

You can link a site to an enterprise unit or an enterprise unit to a site.

If an enterprise unit is linked to a site, the entities of the site belong to the enterprise unit. Conversely, if a site is linked to an enterprise unit, the entities of the enterprise unit belong to the site.

unit set

A group of unit codes that can be linked to standard or customized items, or to item defaults. In a unit set, you can indicate the physical quantities that can be used for the item, in which modules, and for what purposes.