Dan Belanger
That darn Microwave oven. Seems we all expect instant gratification ever since the microwave came to be. Well I guess fast food restaurants have not helped either. Thank goodness for bank lines.
Clearly, these are days when we all expect answers and results in an instant and we have a low tolerance for error – or inaccurate events.
When developing your database field formats, keep in mind that even though speed is of the essence, accuracy must be first and foremost.
Fundamental Database Structure Techniques ..
- Finding Product- The format of your product descriptions are so very important as they can impact your Class, Category, and Commodity Codes. While we used to rely on a part/sku/item number to find things we are now in a very visual environment. Create your descriptions from left to right – making the left most value most generic and the rightmost value the least generic and separate the values with some delimiter – I like the comma. For example: BREAD,WHEAT,24-OZ,AUNT MILLIES. When you sort by description all the BREAD items will sort together and when you search the product you are after, that product should be displayed in a more timely fashion.
- Units of Measure- Keep you units of measure to a standard of 2 or 3 positions. Keep the number of U/M’s small. For example: EA for Each, PC for Piece or use EA for Piece, LB or LBS for Pounds, BX or BOX for Box, GAL or GL for Gallon.
- Upper Case – Am I Yelling? - Unlike in an Email, using all upper case for certain database values is not interpreted as yelling. Keep your customer, vendor, units of measure, product names, and other values in uppercase. Why? because then there’s no question as to whether it should it be upper or lower case. Ever seen this? “Whole Wheat bread” or “24-oz”. Database structures like a lot of “structure”.
- Class; Category; Commodity - Be sure you establish some type of example when setting these fields. In our BREAD example, you might call the Commodity “Bakery Products” and the Category “Breads”. Either way grouping products will go a long ways towards finding product in an accurate and efficient fashion.
- Part/SKU/Item Numbers - Don’t use SMART part numbers. The part number should be an internal method of finding the product you are after. When’s the last time you visited the grocery store, shopping for bread, and gave them the UPC code? Nope, you probably said “I’d like a loaf of whole wheat bread.”
Clearly Software Systems vary in their ability to accommodate these techniques, however that should not stop you from making some type of improvement to better serve your customers.
Every company cares about accuracy and efficiency. If you implement only one of the above best practices at least you’ve taken positive actiontowards making working for and doing business with you a focal point. Heck, it may even put more money in your pocket.
email Dan at: dan@beltechgroupinc.com
