| Object-Oriented Software (object-based) | A software development approach designed to promote reusability of tested and validated software components to simplify and accelerate the creation and maintenance of software. Systems are constructed from instances of classes called objects, which themselves may be aggregations of smaller objects. Fundamentally, lower-level code is developed and tested once and used repeatedly by reference instead of re-writing the code in each module. Since the code is used by reference from a common source, changes only need to be made once. Visualized as software building blocks. |
| Obsolete Inventory | Inventory that has had no sales or usage activity for a specific period of time. The period of time varies by company and industry and may even vary by product line within a specific company and may range from weeks to years. Sometimes referred to as Dead Inventory. |
| Occupiable Space | The space remaining in the warehouse for storing warehousing units after allocating space for service aisles, access aisles, and other utility space.
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| Oligopoly | Where market availability is held by a limited number of firms. |
| On-Hand Balance (on hand inventory) | The amount of product in the warehouse; includes product designated as damaged, on hold, or pending shipment.
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| OO | See Object-Oriented Software |
| Operating System | The hardware-specific electronic instructions that control a computer and spawn user processes. Notable operating systems: Microsoft Windows 2003/XP/2000/NT/98/95/3.1, Linux, BSD, Solaris, Macintosh OS X, DOS, OS/2, OS/390, OS/400, z/OS, i5/OS, QNX, etc. |
| Order Cost | Also known as purchase cost or set up cost, order cost is the sum of the fixed costs that are incurred each time an item is ordered. These costs are not associated with the quantity ordered but primarily with physical activities required to process the order. For purchased items, these would include the cost to enter the purchase order and/or requisition, any approval steps, the cost to process the receipt, incoming inspection, invoice processing and vendor payment, and in some cases a portion of the inbound freight may also be included in order cost. In manufacturing, the order cost would include the time to initiate the work order, time associated with picking and issuing components excluding time associated with counting and handling specific quantities, all production scheduling time, machine set up time, and inspection time. Order cost is used as part of most cost-based order quantity/lot sizing calculations. |
| Order Cycle | Also called replenishment cycle, order cycle refers to the time between orders of a specific item. Most easily calculated by dividing the order quantity by the annual demand and multiplying by the number of days in the year. |
