Luxury Lexicon 23 terms

Supply chain terms

How luxury businesses source, move, count and replenish stock.

All groups

A

Allocation
Distributing available products among stores, markets or channels according to a plan or demand.

B

BOM
Bill of materials: the list of components and quantities needed to make a product.

C

Click and collect
An order placed online and collected at a physical location; also called buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS).
Cycle counting
Counting selected portions of inventory regularly instead of counting all stock at once.

D

Deadstock
Deadstock is inventory that remains unsold or material left unused from an earlier production run.
Demand planning
Estimating future customer demand to guide purchasing, production and stock decisions.

E

ERP
Enterprise resource planning: software that connects activities such as purchasing, inventory and finance through shared records.

L

Lead time
The time between starting or ordering an activity and receiving its result, such as placing an order and receiving stock.
Loss prevention
Measures to reduce theft, fraud, damage and other losses involving stock, money or property.

M

Master data
Core records shared across activities, such as product, customer and supplier details.

O

Order fulfilment
The work of preparing and delivering a customer order, from picking stock to dispatch or collection.

P

PLM
Product lifecycle management: coordinating a product’s information and development from its initial concept onward.
Procurement
Obtaining goods or services through supplier selection, purchasing and related controls.

R

Replenishment
Replenishment is the replacement of stock that has sold or been used so the required quantity is available again.
RFID
Radio-frequency identification: using electronic tags and readers to identify and track items without a visible barcode scan.

S

S&OP
Sales and operations planning: a regular process for aligning demand, supply and financial plans.
SAP
A business software provider whose products support activities such as finance, procurement and inventory.
Shrinkage
The gap between recorded inventory and stock actually available, caused by factors such as theft, damage or recording errors.
SKU
Stock keeping unit: an internal identifier for a particular product variant, such as one size and colour.
Stocktaking
Physically counting stock and checking it against inventory records.
Supply chain
The connected activities that source materials, make products and move them to customers.

T

Traceability
The ability to follow a product, material or component through recorded stages of its supply chain.

W

WMS
Warehouse management system: software for managing warehouse stock and work such as receiving, picking and dispatch.

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