Discrete Unit Management

• Discrete Unit Management
• • Packages
  • Containers
  • Discrete Unit Package Groups
  • Bulk Package Groups
  • Packing Items
  • Container Types
  • Child Package Groups
  • Package Group Batches
  • Videos

A discrete material is a material that is handled as a distinct, identifiable entity in terms of creation, packing, movement, stocktaking, sales and consumption. Examples of materials that are handled as discrete materials are precious metals (for example, gold and silver bullion), base metals (for example, copper, lead, zinc) and packaged minerals (for example, mineral sands, cement).

When a material is packaged or formed as an individual unit (for example, an ingot or bar), the material is said to be of a discrete unit (DU) form.

Packages

A package represents a discrete unit of material. A package may have sub-units; however, it cannot be split into its sub-units. Packages are created in discrete unit batches, or added to an existing batch.

Containers

A container is a unit for carrying a bulk package group. For example, bags of mineral sands may be packed onto pallets, and multiple pallets moved together represent a bulk package group. When the container is defined to be at a location, its bulk package group is created and tightly bound to it.

An alternative to using the MineMarket container functionality is to create package groups via the Package Group Explorer and assign a container type to the package groups. This alternative is preferable when unique physical shipping containers do not need to be managed and tracked; or if using discrete unit package groups.

Discrete Unit Package Groups

Packages can be grouped into package groups for easy movement and despatch.

A simple type of discrete unit package group is one that is made up of only packages. Packages can belong to only one discrete unit package group.

A more complex type of discrete unit package group is one that is made up of packages and other discrete unit package groups. The parent package group can be used as a packing list. Packages can be moved directly from the parent package group to child package groups.

Bulk Package Groups

A bulk package group contains bulk material, such as copper concentrate or mineral sands.

Bulk package groups are created either from a container (in which case the bulk package group is tightly bound to the container), or created using the Package Group Explorer.

Packing Items

Packing items can be assigned to package groups and are in addition to the material that is in the package groups. Examples of packing items include pallets and headboards. If packing items are assigned to a package group, the tare mass of the package group is calculated as the total mass of the packing items.

Both package group types can have packing items.

Container Types

Container types define the storage type (bulk or packaged material) and mass of a container.

Both package group types can have an associated container type. A package group created from a container inherits the container type of the container.

Child Package Groups

Both package group types can have child package groups. However, if the parent package group is bulk, only bulk package groups can be added as child package groups. If the parent package group is for discrete units (packages), only discrete unit package groups can be added as child package groups.

Package Group Batches

Package group batches provide a method to create multiple package groups that share several properties; for example, despatch order, location or container type. The package groups in the batch can be created as child package groups of another package group.

Videos

A Datamine consultant recorded two videos about discrete units in MineMarket.