Invantive EstateThis section describes the screens relating to the logistics of a project or organization. Logistics covers the area of development and procurement followed by the production and distribution of products with the necessary personnel to the final customer, with the aim to fulfill the needs of the market at optimum cost and capital used.
Invantive Estate offersa a number of possibilities to settle logistical processes. The data is available at three levels in the product structure:
•Product Group: a bundle of products, such as for example ‘Consumables’.
•Product: a specific product without a serial number.
•Unit: a specific serial number of a product. A unit is an independent object of a certain product. For example, in real estate development this can be an office of the type ‘Gull’, while in the automation it can be a server with a serial number ‘123XBA’ of the type ‘Dell 2950’. To each product belongs óne unit with the unique identifier ‘0’. This unit can be used for logistic functions if no unique identifier is known. This so-called ‘0-unit’ is created by the system itself and will automatically be removed if the product is deleted.
A Unit on its turn can have relationships with other units, so you can for example, capture which fingerprint reader is connected to which camera. This is not necessarily, but it is useful for complex configurations and it is typically used in service organizations that work with serial-based devices in large numbers in the field (so-called ‘MIF’ or ‘Machine-in-Field’).
Moreover a Unit can have special properties that can be different for each Product. So for example for a vehicle the kilometers and for a fingerprint reader the number of fingers scanned.
This is for example useful for measuring a system (‘do we need to replace the cartridge’) or for invoicing (‘you need to pay EUR 100 per month plus EUR 0.10 per scanned finger’).
The last concept is Warehouses: a warehouse is a location where units are stored. This can be: a cabinet, a rack, a warehouse but also a vehicle or a garage box.
For a warehouse transactions of a specific Unit Transaction Type can be registered. For example, ‘The issue a work order¹ or 'A recount'. This eventually leads to stock: a summation of all transactions in time leads to a certain position.
If the work order process is running well, the automatically write off of inventory can be used. This makes quite a few demands on the process, but it closes off the process neater.
Which logistics processes are less well supported by Invantive Estate ?
•Everything which has to do with production (how much shoes out of one square meter of leather, when and how many screws at what time, thus MRP 2/JIT).
•There are no integrations with handheld scanners, etc. made yet. Is still not standard available.
•The valuation in the books: at what value would you rate the stock: the current purchase price, the average price or something else? This is not supported by Invantive Estate.
