| Economic Order Quantity | The result of a calculation that determines the most cost effective quantity to order (purchased items) or produce (manufactured items). The formula basically finds the point at which the combination of order cost and carrying cost is the least. The standard formula is EOQ = Square Root [2 * (Annual Usage) * (Order Cost) / (Annual Carrying Cost/unit)].
|
| EDI | See Electronic Data Interchange |
| Electronic Data Interchange | Sometimes called Electronic Document Interchange. A computer-based exchange of business transaction data using globally-standardized protocols. The vast majority of business to business (B2B) communications are via EDI. Major retailers rely on EDI to order merchandise, receive advanced shipping notices (ASNs), and to be invoiced by their vendors. The data in EDI documents are the same as in paper documents. There are three different EDI standards (UN/EDIFACT, ANCI X.12, and UCS) each with its own set of required data fields, but with many other optional fields. |
| Enterprise Resource Planning | Software systems designed to manage most or all aspects of a manufacturing or distribution enterprise (an expanded version of MRP systems). ERP systems are usually broken down into modules such as Financials, Sales, Purchasing, Inventory Management, Manufacturing, MRP, DRP. The modules are designed to work seamlessly with the rest of the system and should provide a consistent user interface between them. These systems usually have extensive set-up options that allow you to customize their functionality to your specific business needs. Unfortunately, in the real world, ERP systems rarely are sufficient to meet all business needs and a myriad of other software packages such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS), Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and Transportation Management Systems (TMS) are being sold to make up for their deficiencies. |
| EOQ | See Economic Order Quantity
|
| ERP | See Enterprise Resource Planning
|
| ETL | See Extract, Transform, and Load |
| Event-Triggered Counting Method | Any method used to determine when to count an item that is based upon a specific event occurring. Examples of events that could trigger a count would include inventory levels dropping below their specified reorder point, the completion of a production run, or on-hand inventory reaching zero. |
| Exception Handling | The process of managing atypical events that occur during a process. Exception handling is critical in automated processes and software routines. |
| Exception Report | A report that selects data based on a very specific set of circumstances to identify process exceptions. Reports that identify items with negative on-hand quantities would be an example of exception reports.
|
| Excess Inventory | Inventory quantities above a specific need. Some businesses may designate excess inventory as inventory beyond a certain time period of demand. For example, any inventory greater than 60 days demand. Others may designate it as inventory beyond their current safety stock plus lot size (order quantity). |
| Expediting | Following up on orders placed to insure timely shipment and delivery. Requires advanced communications with shippers and carriers. |
| Expiration Date | A product expiration date; a feature that may be used to assign an expiration date to an inventoried item. Commonly used with perishable inventory items. |
| Extract, Transform, and Load | The process of extracting data from an operational data source, transforming the data which can include cleansing, aggregation, summarization, integration, as well as transformation (e.g. 1 becomes “Male” 2 becomes “Female”), and loading the data into another database (e.g. ODS, enterprise data warehouse, data mart). ETL can also refer to vendor software that performs these processes. ETL processes extract data from source databases and copy it to target databases. ETL can migrate data between databases, process data to form data marts and data warehouses, and convert data or databases from one format or type to another. |
