10-26-2018, 05:34 PM
I'm thinking about a small yet in my view important module that I'd like to call 'ProductRelation'. The goal is as follows:
Products can't always be regarded as a flat family. Some products may be assembled by combining other products from the products database, some may not be assembled in your company but could be a spare part for another product. Some products could even qualify as a 'part' for multiple products, but in different quantities. This is just a quick list from the top of my head, but I'm sure other company's could have different use cases.
The goal of the module I'm thinking of is to keep track of the nature in which products are related to another. The reason that I want to create a module for this, in stead of some extra fields is that the relations themselves have some unique attributes. Imagine for instance that you could qualify the relation as 'spare part', or 'assembly part', or both. You would also want to set a quantity. Lets say I sell a machine that uses 2 standard belt drives. The belts, subject to wear, are a separate product in my database. But those belts could also be used in another, more complicated machine that uses that same belt, but uses 4 in stead of 2.
This comes to play especially in assembled products. When you assemble a certain machine, the parts will virtually 'leave the stock', as in they're no longer available to use in another machine or to be sold as a spare part. So when we complete the assembly, we want to increase the stock amount of the assembled product but at the same time, decrease the stock of all assembly parts. For this, we need to know how many parts are used in a single assembly.
So basically, I would start out with the fields:
I would like to know your thoughts and possible additions to this functionality, so feel free to speak up!
Products can't always be regarded as a flat family. Some products may be assembled by combining other products from the products database, some may not be assembled in your company but could be a spare part for another product. Some products could even qualify as a 'part' for multiple products, but in different quantities. This is just a quick list from the top of my head, but I'm sure other company's could have different use cases.
The goal of the module I'm thinking of is to keep track of the nature in which products are related to another. The reason that I want to create a module for this, in stead of some extra fields is that the relations themselves have some unique attributes. Imagine for instance that you could qualify the relation as 'spare part', or 'assembly part', or both. You would also want to set a quantity. Lets say I sell a machine that uses 2 standard belt drives. The belts, subject to wear, are a separate product in my database. But those belts could also be used in another, more complicated machine that uses that same belt, but uses 4 in stead of 2.
This comes to play especially in assembled products. When you assemble a certain machine, the parts will virtually 'leave the stock', as in they're no longer available to use in another machine or to be sold as a spare part. So when we complete the assembly, we want to increase the stock amount of the assembled product but at the same time, decrease the stock of all assembly parts. For this, we need to know how many parts are used in a single assembly.
So basically, I would start out with the fields:
- Master product
- Slave product
- Slave quantity
- Relation type
I would like to know your thoughts and possible additions to this functionality, so feel free to speak up!