Oracle Inventory: Units of Measure in R12

Unit of Measure (UOM)

A Unit of measure is a value that specifies the quantity of an item.

We define unit of measure for tracking, moving, storing and counting items.

Primary Unit of measure: This is the UOM which can be used for tracking, counting the onhand quantities and to calculate during any transactions.

Secondary Unit of Measure: If business needs to track any item in dual unit of measure, then we need to define a secondary UOM for the item if there is no constant conversion available with the primary UOM. For example, in a cake shop cakes can be measured as Each and Pounds and here constant conversion not possible.

If an item is under dual unit of measure control the system tracks on-hand quantity based on both the primary and secondary units of measure. For example, you can track an item in both each and liter.

Uses of Unit of Measure

·         Planning Products

o   Forecasting and consumption

o   Master scheduling

o   Material requirements planning

·         Work in Process

o   Shop floor moves

o   Resource transaction

o   Completion and return transactions

o   Inquiries and reports

·         Bills of Material and Engineering

o   Defining bills of material

o   Defining engineering items

Unit of Measure Class

Unit of measure classes represent groups of units of measure with similar characteristics. A unit of measure class contains a base unit of measure. You use the base unit of measure to perform conversions between units of measure in the class. For this reason, the base unit of measure should represent the other units of measure in the class, and be one of the smaller units. For example, quantity is a unit of measure class and each, dozen, and gross are examples of units of measure within the class. The unit of measure each is the base unit of measure for this class. 

Units of Measure Conversions

A unit of measure conversion is a mathematical relationship between two different units of measure. For example, 16 ounces = 1 pound, or 2.2 pounds = 1 kilogram. If you want to transact items in units of measure belonging to classes other than their primary UOM class, you must define conversions between the base units of measure in different UOM classes.

Lot-Level Unit of Measure Conversions

Lot specific conversions enable you to perform a specific inter-class conversion for a given lot. This enables you to establish more granular control over the transactional quantities of a lot. For example, the standard inter-class conversion for a lot controlled item is one gallon equals 15 pounds; however, when you receive a particular lot of the item, 1 gallon equals 16 pounds. You can create a lot specific unit of measure for this instance.

You can create lot-specific unit of measure conversions for on-hand lots or lots with a zero balance. If you create a lot-specific conversion for a lot with on-hand quantities, you can automatically update the quantities in the system to more accurately reflect the on-hand quantity.