Hello there, Fishy Fans. Today I am going to explain why using the unit of measure “each” can be a nightmare for your Fishbowl file setup.
Back in 2010, Fishbowl’s Manufacturing release reserved the unit of measure “each” to be used with serialized parts. Hence, there became a need to restrict “each” to whole numbers only. So, since 2010 we have not been able to have half an "each" or a quarter of an "each", etc., nor have we been able to fractionalize other units of measure that have a conversion to "each".
Frankly, this isn’t much of a problem for distribution companies, but it can be truly problematic for manufacturers. Therefore, I advise all of my manufacturing clients to create a substitute for “each" such as “unit” or “piece”.
I have met many manufacturers whose Fishbowl Implementations were completely stalled because they didn’t understand the limitations and restrictions with Fishbowl unit of measure “each”.
For example, I had a food client where most of their inventory was measured in pounds. Someone created a unit of measure conversion where 1 “pound” equaled 1 “each”. Now none of their parts in pounds could be fractionalized. The conversion broke all their recipes and we had to create a new file!
What the future holds for the evils of "Each."
Fishbowl is well aware of the limitations of measuring units as “each”. The head of development and I have had conversations regarding how to minimize the negative impact of an accidental unit of measure conversion as above. I have suggested to him to add a change that allows users to make the unit of measure “each” inactive, as well as not be the default unit of measure when users go to create a new part.
But until Fishbowl can change that, I recommend all manufacturers (and to a lesser extent distributors), to take the following actions: